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PRINCIPLES OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 



CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE LECTURES 



PRINCIPLES 



OF 



RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 



A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED UNDER 
THE AUSPICES OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
COMMISSION OF THE DIOCESE OF NEW YORK 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY 

The Right Reverend HENRY C. POTTER, D.D., LL.D. 

Bishop of New York 




LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

91 and 93 Fifth Avenue, New York 

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Copyright, 1900, 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



ROBEKT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK. 



PREFACE. 

THE following - Lectures were originally delivered 
in the Autumn of 1899, in St. Bartholomew's Church, 
Madison Avenue and Forty-fourth Street, New 
York. They formed what was called ' ' The Chris- 
tian Knowledge Course of Lectures on the Principles 
of Religious Instruction. ' ' This Course was arranged 
under the auspices of the Sunday-school Commission 
")f the Diocese of New York, which had been ap- 
pointed by the Rt. Rev. Henry C. Potter, D.D., 
LL.D., Bishop of New York, at the Diocesan Con- 
vention of 1898, to consider what steps should be 
taken for the improvement of the Sunday-schools of 
the Diocese. It had long been felt that our Religious 
Schools were not all that they should be, either in the 
Curriculum of Study or in the general Training of 
the Teachers. 

The Church has not advanced with the Day- 
school along the lines of educational reform. The 
study of pedagogical principles has been made an 
essential in secular education, while the Church has 
largely overlooked it, as applied to her Sunday- 
schools; and almost completely ignored it in the 
training of her Clergy. And she has done this, 
in spite of the fact that in theory the Teaching 
Function of the Church is her most ancient and 



vi PREFACE. 

characteristic one, lying at the very heart of her 
commission. 

The basic principle, therefore, underlying these 
Lectures is that the Sunday-school is a school. Its 
problems are educational problems. Its scope of 
instruction, its curriculum, its . text-books, charts, 
maps, the equipment and training of its teachers, the 
hours and times and places of its work, — all these are 
questions to be considered in the light of educational 
principles. Hence it is important to consider Re- 
ligious Education first from the standpoint of acknow- 
ledged leaders in the cause of secular education. 
This Course of Lectures, covering roughly the entire 
field, each lecture presenting its own point of view, 
and all converging on the one general object, was 
arranged and carried out with the generous co-opera- 
tion of the following gentlemen : The Right Reverend 
Wm. Croswell Doane, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of 
Albany; the Very Reverend George Hodges, D.D., 
Dean of the Cambridge Divinity School ; Professor 
Charles De Garmo, Ph.D., of Cornell University; 
President G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University; Pro- 
fessor Frank Morton McMurry, Ph.D., Professor of 
"the Theory of Teaching," in Teachers College, 
Columbia University; Professor Charles Foster Kent, 
of Brown University; and Professor Richard G. 
Moulton, M.A., of Chicago University; together 
with the following Members of the Sunday-school 
Commission: Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, 
Ph.D., LL.D, of Columbia University; Dr. Walter 
L. Hervey, Examiner of the Board of Education, 
New York, and former President of Teachers Col- 



PREFACE. vn 

lege; and the Reverend Pascal Harrower, Chair- 
man of the Commission. 

The particular Topics covered by the Lectures 
were ' ' The Relation of Religious Instruction to 
Education as a Whole," "The Educational Work 
of the Christian Church," "The Present Status of 
Religious Instruction in England, France, Germany, 
and the United States, " The Content of Religious 
Instruction," "The Sunday-school and its Course 
of Study, " " The Preparation of the Teacher, ' ' 
"The Religious Content of the Child's Mind," 
' ' The Use of Biography, " " The Use of Geog- 
raphy, ' ' and ' ' The Bible as Literature. ' ' 

With deepest thanks to the learned gentlemen, 
who by their aid and encouragement have made 
possible the production of this Volume, and with the 
earnest hope that it may prove of material benefit to 
all who are interested in the work of Christian 
Education, the Course of Lectures is now placed 
before the Church and her teachers. 

Members of tbe Commission. 

Rev. Pascal Harrower, Chairman, West New Brighton, New- 
York. 
Rev. Wm. Walter Smith, M.A., M.D., Secretary, 25 West 114th 
Street, New York. 

Henry H. Pike, Esq., Treasurer, 134 Pearl Street, New York. 

Rev. Henry Mottet, D.D. Rev. Wm. L. Evans, M.A. 

Rev. John P. Peters, D.D. Rev. Chas. A. Hamilton, M.A. 

Rev. E. Walpole Warren, D D. Rev. Ernest C. Saunders, B.D. 
Rev. David H. Greer, D.D. Nichol as M.Butler, Ph.D., LL.D. 
Rev. Wm. S. Rainsford, D.D. Walter L. Hervey, Ph.D. 
Rev. Lester Bradner, Ph.D. Charles W. Stoughton, Esq. 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE occasion for the Lectures gathered in this 
volume is one with which thoughtful men and 
women can hardly fail to sympathize. No one who 
takes into account the forces that make for the best, 
whether in character or conduct, can be insensible 
to the pre-eminent value, in their development, of 
the influences that touch the deepest springs, and 
find their sources in the highest inspirations. That, 
I suppose, is the object of what we call education. 
We have, in a child's mind, something ductile, 
fluent, impressionable. His earliest perceptions and 
apprehensions are apt to be its deepest, most deter- 
minative, if not always its most enduring ; and if so, 
nothing can transcend the importance of the condi- 
tions, agencies, and instruments by which these are 
made. 

In this view it must be owned that the modern 
Church has not adequately recognised its responsi- 
bilities nor improved its opportunities, as a teacher 
of the young. There have been ages when that 
office belonged almost exclusively to it, and when 
its failures were due, not perhaps to its want of zeal, 
but to its want of wisdom. To-day the conditions 



X INTRODUCTION. 

are quite different. Under republican institutions, 
and with us in the United States, the functions of the 
State as a religious teacher through an established 
religion, have as most of us I presume believe, wisely 
ceased. That fact ought undoubtedly to have awak- 
ened and stimulated the Church to increased en- 
deavours to supply what a Christian man must hold 
to be fundamental to a right education, and which, 
now, the Church or the family alone can give. Our 
American situation, in other words, has lifted the 
Sunday-school into a position of preeminent import- 
ance which, we must acknowledge has been but 
feebly and imperfectly recognised. 

Under these circumstances, the pages that follow 
are opportune, and, I think they will be found, per- 
tinent and helpful. They are the fruit of various and 
earnest thought, of large experience, and of a high 
purpose. I am glad to believe that they will lift the 
office of the Sunday-school to a higher plane in the 
estimate of thoughtful people, and will open its aims 
and methods to the more appreciative sympathy of 
all who, whether as pastors, parents, or teachers, are 
in any way responsible, to use an old phrase, for 
' 'godliness and good learning " in the young. 

Henry C. Potter. 



CONTENTS. 



i. 

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND ITS RELATION TO EDUCATION. 

By Nicholas Murray Butler, Ph.D., 
Professor of Philosophy and Education in Columbia University. 

PAGE 

True education a unitary force 3 

"Education" denned. — Adaptation to environment, and capacity 
to control environment. — Education first a matter of principle, 

and secondly one of methods 4 

Chief principle found in man's relation to environment. — " En- 
vironment " defined as, man's physical surroundings, and that 
accretion of knowledge, resulting in habit and conduct, called 

"civilization" 5 

Environment both physical and spiritual. — Spiritual environment 
(civilization) divided into science, literature, art, institutional 
life, and religious beliefs. — All these necessary to education. ... 6 
Religious training part of a general education. — Its separation 
from education an outgrowth of Protestantism and Democ- 
racy. — Ethnic or racial religions include religious training in 
education. — So with Christianity before the Reformation. — 
Change and separation followed. — Democracy assisted in school 
secularization. — Reduction of religious teaching to lowest pos- 
sible terms. — Only the Bible, Lord's Prayer, and Hymn left. — 
The Bible thrown out as sectarian. — Legislation against sectarian 
instruction in State schools. — Wisconsin decision against Bible- 
reading. — The Church and home circle the proper sources of 



Xli CONTENTS. 

TAGB 

religious instruction. — State schools and the Government alike 
''Godless." — This the American and French doctrines. — Hence 

all State education incomplete 6 

Education not wholly a State duty. — Family, Church, and social 
factors. — Though schools are secular, religious instruction still 

necessary ' 1 1 

What are Church and family doing for education ? — Is religion 
important? — Civilization unintelligible without it. — Its univer- 
sality. — Religion a part of Man's psychical being 12 

Moral and civic instruction no substitute for religion. — Absurd 
results of contrary view in France. — Confusion of religion with 

ethics obscures both 14 

Church, Sunday-school, and family the proper agencies. — Sun- 
day-school part of general educational work. — Combination of 
small parishes. — Teachers must be trained and paid. — Their 
labour educational, not philanthropic. — Supervision by Sunday- 
school Board. — Course of study now too " pious." — Wider scope 
and gradation. — Religion in education ; not religion and educa- 
tion. — Radical but necessary changes 15 

The alternative, religious ignorance. — Examples in universities. — 
The key to the heart. — Knowledge reacts on feelings. — Benefits 
of wide education 18 



II. 

THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

By the Rt. Rev. William Croswell Doanh, DD., LL.D., 
Bishop of Albany. 

Christ's Prophetic, Priestly, and Kingly offices the three func- 
tions of the Church. — The Prophetic function illustrated by the 
Sermon on the Mount. — This mission that of the Church to- 
day. — The Apostles' work of imparting the Faith 23 

" Teaching," in relation to rules of Faith and Life, defined. — This 
teaching the great Apostolic Mandate. — St. Paul's labours. — The 
Church the great religious teacher to-day. — Early Christian 

Schools and their Influence 24 

Extent of true Christion education. — Scott Holland on the old 






CONTENTS. xiii 

PAGE 

Greek masters of theology. — The Church foremost in education 
in the Middle Ages. — The Church's work to-day inadequate. — 
Contrasts and contradictions in the Universities. — Not so irre- 
ligious as depicted 27 

Modern theologians' weakness not the result of weakness in the 
Faith itself. — The great Verities of the Faith beyond all investi- 
gation. — Never in antagonism with science, reason, or philoso- 
phy. — No real conflict of Classroom and Chapel 31 

Attitude of Church toward education a difficult problem. — State 
schools secular from necessity. — Parochial schools inadequate. — 
Broad associations best for the student for later social environment 34 
Problem met by Church Halls in Universities. — How the Church 
Hall would teach. — Correlation of Science and Religion, Philoso- 
phy and Faith. — The teachings of history, geography, and litera- 
ture 36 

The Church's existing machinery chiefly the Sunday-school. — 
A modern makeshift replacing neglect of home and parents. — 
The Catechism the Church's basis of instruction. — Duty of the 
Clergy to train teachers. — " Society for Home Study of the Holy 

Scriptures " 39 

The Pulpit as a Church organ for education. — Not eloquence 
needed, but teaching of Faith and Life. — The Old Word in 
modern phrases 41 



III. 

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, 
AND THE UNITED STATES. 

By Charles De Garmo, Ph.D., 
Professor of the Science and Art of Education in Cornell University. 

Origin of religious instruction in English schools. — Lancaster's 
labours for the Dissenters. — Bell's Church of England work. — 

Lancaster's scheme of paid and pupil teachers. — Its failure 49 

Government grants for voluntary schools. — Failure of the sys- 
tem. — Organization of Board schools. — Religious instruction 
made optional. — Government inspection of secular education. — 



xiv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

American schools unfavourably contrasted. — Rise of the Sunday- 
school system. — Two systems of religious instruction side by side 52 
In France no religious instruction in public schools. — Weekly 

holiday for denominational religious teaching 56 

In Germany day-schools impart the religious teaching. — Thor- 
oughness of the system. — Curriculum broad and complete. — 
Critical spirit in the Universities. — Difference in teaching for 
scholars and for the masses. — Religious feeling neglected. — New- 
curricula now being formulated 56 

The United States compared with Europe. — Threefold purpose 
of religious instruction. — Deficiency of Christian knowledge com- 
pared with Europe. — Superiority over Europe in Christian spirit 
and Christian conduct. — Improvements suggested. — Better peda- 
gogical system needed. — Arrangement of material for various 
ages. — Period of adolescence crucial. — Wrong treatment after 

adolescence 62 

Reaction in England favours subjective spiritual life. — Whitefield's 
and Wesley's systems of religious exercises. — Similar tendencies 
in America. — Need for wiser treatment.— Man's relation to his 
fellow men. — Universal conditions, not accidental circumstances, 
paramount. — Improvement of Sunday-schools 70 



IV. 

THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

By the Very Reverend George Hodges, D.D., 
Dean of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass. 

Content of religious instruction determined by its purpose. — The 

day-school, the private school, and the public school 79 

Purpose of the Sunday-school to train Christians and Church- 
men. — Parish work designed to build up Christian and Church 

character 80 

Content of religious instruction consists of Church material and 
Character material. — What constitutes Character material. — 
Church material. — The light of personality. — Church History.... 81 
The distribution of material, or order of teaching. — Found in the 



CONTENTS. 



Sunday-school and the Congregation. — The Sunday-school and 

its grades. — Teaching in the Congregation 85 

The Infant School. — Small children have only memory and imag- 
ination. — Teach what may be partly understood. — Imagination 
best appealed to through Bible stories. — Systematic and graphic 

teaching. — Re-translation of Bible for children's minds 86 

The Main School.- — Course of Instruction. — The Catechism re- 
cited and explained. — The Bible. — The historical books. — Teach- 
ing both content and contents. — What may be omitted. — The 
Prayer Book taught by use. — Sample Service. — Special Ser- 
vices. — Stereopticon exhibitions 89 

The Congregation. — Sunday Services. — Need of systematic in- 
struction. — Haphazard Preaching. — The Preacher's studies. — 
The Confirmation Class. — What the order of instruction should 
cover. — Mid-week Services. — The young Minister's experiment 
station. — Definite Bible-study. — Sunday evening Services. — Ser- 
mon or Lecture. — Requirements of a Lecture course 94 



V. 

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

By the Reverend Pascal Harrower, 
Chairman of the Sunday-School Commission, Diocese of New York. 

Principle underlying the present course of lectures. — Church 
school educational. — Importance of education. — Object of the 

Church school. — The school's work for civilization 105 

History of the Church school. — The child the pivot of society. — 
The Jewish estimate of childhood. — Christ and the child. — The 
early Church and its ministry to children. — Mutual relations of 
preaching and teaching. — Martin Luther. — Archbishop Dupan- 
loup. — The ministry of catechizing. — Pedagogical training of the 

ministry 107 

Preparation of a course of study. — Church school more than a 
Bible school. — Curriculum a problem for trained educators. — The 

subject-matter, or lesson-material Ill 

The Church Catechism. — Errors in teaching 113 



xvi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Bible. — International Sunday-School Lessons.— Defects of 
this and similar schemes. — What the Bible is. — Its educational 
value. —Bible-study in American colleges. — Moral value of liter- 
ary Bible-study. — The method of Jesus 114 

Nature-study. — Jesus near to the heart of Nature 121 

Sacred geography 122 

History. —The "Free Church" Text Books. —The Oxford 

Manuals 123 

Christian ethics. — The contemporary Christ. — First contact of 

youth with the world. — Responsibility of the Church 124 

The Prayer*Book and the Christian Year 125 

Conclusion. —The Church needs the aid of trained educators . . . 126 



VI. 

THE PREPARATION OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

By Walter L. Hervey, Ph.D., 

Examiner, New York Board of Education; Former President, 

Teachers Cpllege. 

Primary assumptions as to function of teacher and teaching. — 

Three problems: Subject-matter; Pupil; Teacher 131 

The Subject-matter. — Two ways of learning and teaching : The 

Poet's and the Philosopher's ways 132 

The Poet's way. — Power of dramatic imagination. — Its use in 
Bible-teaching. — Illustration : SS. Peter and John at Beautiful 
Gate of the Temple. — Telling the story realistically. — Illustra- 
tion : Story of •' Cadmus" as told by Bullfinch. Addison, and 
Hawthorne. — Application of this method to religious teaching . . 132 
The Philosopher's way. — Getting at the meaning. — Illustrations. 
— Danger of wrong interpretations. — Precise meaning of every 

paragraph to be sought 140 

Directions for the study of any subject-matter. — Buried meta- 
phors. — Illustrations. — Personal assimilation. — Pupil's know- 
ledge of the subject. — Catechism, etc., compared with the Bible 144 
The Pupil. — General principle in dealing with him. — The prin- 
ciple applied. — Ideas in pairs. — Illustrations. — Paraphrasing. — 
Appreciation of Roman history evidenced in modern slang. — A 



CONTENTS. xvn 

PAGE 

Biblical title-page. — Special rule from general principle. — Intro- 
ducing a subject to the class. —Additional points of insight re- 
quired by teacher. — Illustrated by Hamlet and Guildenstern. — 

An argument for child-study 147 

The Teacher. — Must distinguish between external and internal 
authority. — Must help the pupil to find the truth for himself. — 
Must set the Bible in its proper place. — Must lay stress on Jesus 

Christ in the child-life 154 

General negations. — What not said or meant 157 



VII. 

THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

By G. Stanley Hall, D.D., 
President of Clark University. 

The study of child-development a recent movement. — The child 
the general type of the species. — Difficult to observe laws of 

child-growth in Sunday-school teaching 161 

Principles of child-evolution. — The stages passed through in all 
animal formations. — This law necessary to perfect humanity. — 
Froebel's doctrine. — The corner-stone of the new pedagogy. — 

The coming of Christianity 165 

The child's religious evolution follows same general law. — Seen 
in his fetish -worship and in his love of Nature and his personifi- 
cation of her. — Natural religions also prove it 168 

Importance of Nature-study in the Sunday-schools. — Power of 
Nature in all savage and primitive religions. — Something of such 
religions should be taught in Sunday-schools. — Proper uses of 
the Bible in teaching. — Personal application of Christ's saving 

grace should come later 172 

Importance of the adolescent period of youth. — Altruism the es- 
sence of religion. — The end and aim of education. — The time for 
completing religious education. — Cultivation and elevation of the 
sentiment of love. — Danger of neglect of these principles. — Reli- 
gion must not be awakened too early. — Precocity. — Adolescence 
and conversion. — Science and the reality of sin. — Degeneration. 



xvm CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

— Terrible effects of sin upon conscience. — Bible shows close 

connection with Psychology 178 

Childhood the best period for teaching and training. — Shown by 
study of biology. — Childhood the noblest humanity. — The teach- 
ing best for children 186 



VIII. 

THE USE OF BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

By Frank Morton McMurry, Ph.D., 

Professor of "The Theory of Teaching," in Teachers College, 

Columbia University. 

The two fundamental principles of all instruction. — Law must 
control all instruction, religious or secular. — Object of instruction 

is to develop permanent interest 193 

Importance of biography in religious instruction. — Depends on 
our aspect of the Bible. — This must be decided before attempting 
to teach. — This decision equally important in day-school instruc- 
tion. — Bible content, and hence Bible instruction mainly history 195 
Selected summary of a biographical Bible instruction. — This 
treatment does not exclude Biblical literature or underlying 
truths. — Illustrations from the story of Joseph — History the 

groundwork of this teaching 197 

Reason for the biographical treatment of the Bible in teaching. — 
Tendency of children to personify everything. — Geography, his- 
tory, Nature-study, and science now taught by personification 

method 198 

Why biography interests and holds the child. — It gives facts cor- 
rectly. — Therefore close relation is needed between the various 
lessons. — No such relation in present systems. — Biography, be- 
ing concrete, appeals to children. — Literature accepts this prin- 
ciple. — Sunday-schools have ignored it, to their detriment. — 
Illustration of possible abuse. — Proper relation of concrete to 
abstract ten to one. — Hence religious instruction should be main- 
ly by narrative. — Biography forms good groundwork for other 



CONTENTS. xix 

PAGE 

facts. —Helpful in reviews, and a good basis for examination of 

teachers 201 

Age best suited for study of biography. — Teachers must deal 
chiefly with facts 210 



IX. 

THE USE OF GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

By Charles Foster Kent, Ph.D., 
Professor of Biblical Literature and History in Brown University. 

Biblical geography of utmost importance in any thorough study. 
— Its use in Sunday-schools. — Makes history real. — Geography 
of Palestine moulded character and history of its people. — In 
geography past and present meet. How to make its results of 
practical value. — Importance in general education. — Biblical 
geography now incompletely taught. — Importance of good 

Sunday-school libraries 215 

Suggested books for Sunday-school libraries. — Palestine. — 

Egypt. — Babylonia. — Asia Minor 224 

Wall-maps 226 

Palestine Exploration Fund. — Maps and books 226 

Divisions or departments of Biblical geography. — Descriptive 
geography: Palestine, Egypt, and Assyria. — Physical geography: 
Palestine, its six zones and rivers. — Geological geography. — 
Commercial geography. — Racial geography. — Historical geo- 
graphy 227 

How to study Biblical geography. — Make its scope comprehen- 
sive. — Study the earth in its relation to man. — Geography but a 

step to Bible-study 240 

Does scientific study produce personal religious interest? — Per- 
sonal faith seldom unsettled by it. — New interest in the Bible and 
its teaching is produced. — College students taking elective Bible 
courses. — Increasing number of Bible students in universities. — 

Necessity of true scientific methods 242 

Samaria and Judea are merged rather than possessed of a true 
boundary. ...,,,.,,,,,,., f ,., f ,,,,,,, ,\ ,.,,,,,,,,, , 248 



xx CONTENTS. 

X. 

THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE. 

By Richard G. Moulton, M.A., 
Professor of Literature in Chicago University. 

PAGE 

What literary study of the Bible is. — Fundamental principle of 
intimate connection between matter and form in literature. — 
Illustrated by Solomon's Song and the two views of its inter- 
pretation, the application of Bible verses, and the true literary 

form of Psalm VIII 251 

Three main forms of Bible-study: Devotional, Higher Criticism, 
and Literary. — Devotional : possible errors in interpretation, 
with illustrations. — Critical and literary, illustrated by Book of 

Micah 258 

Our right to a literary study of the Bible. — Original form lost in 
the " Age of Commentary." — Steps toward recovery of true form 265 
How to study the Bible as literature. — Necessity of suitable 
printing. — Present imperfect printing. — Study by Books, not by 
verses. — Illustration from Deuteronomy. — That Book chiefly one 
of orations. — Analysis of Deuteronomy. — The principle enun- 
ciated. — The Bible a library rather than a single volume. — 

Contents of the real Bible library 268 

Literary study of the Bible. — Three stages. — The stage of 
Stories, illustrated by Genesis. — The stage of Masterpieces, 
illustrated by Deborah's Song. — The stage of Complete Literary 
Groups, illustrated by Bible History in the Old Testament. — 
Analysis of the Pentateuch, illustrated by Bible Philosophy or . 

Wisdom. — Analysis of the Books of Wisdom 277 

General conclusion. 287 

Topical Index 289 



I. 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND ITS 
RELATION TO EDUCATION. 

By Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, Ph.D., LL.D., of 

Columbia University. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE I. 

True Education a Unitary Process. 

Definition of Education. 

Educational Principles. 

Environment, Spiritual and Physical. 

Elements in Spiritual Environment or Civilization. 

Religious Training merely part of Education as a whole. 

Its Separation an outgrowth of Protestantism and Democracy. 

Pre- Reformation Period. 

Rise of Protestant Influence. 

Democracy and Sectarianism. 

State-supported Schools exclude Religion. 

Supreme Court Decisions against Religious Training in State Schools. 

General American View. 

View in France. , 

Family and Church supplement the State Instruction. 

Place and Importance of Religion. 

Universality of Religion. 

Moral and Civic Instruction no Substitute for Religion. 

The Work of the Sunday-school. 

Its Organization and Methods. 

Its Teachers. 

Its Courses of Study. 

Religious Ignorance seen even in Universities and Colleges. 

Heart and Feelings best reached by developing Intellect and Will. 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND ITS RE- 
LATION TO EDUCATION. 

THE problems of what is called religious education 
are part of the problem of education as a whole. 

True education, as distinguished from the innumer- 
able false uses of the word, is a unitary process. It 
knows no mathematically accurate sub- _ 

J True educa- 

divisions. It admits of no chemical analy- tion a Turf- 
sis into elements, each of which has a real ary P r0CI 
existence apart from the whole. When stretched 
upon a dissecting-table, education is already dead. 
Its constituent parts are interesting and, in a way, 
significant; but when cut out of the whole, they have 
ceased to live. They are no longer vital, or truly 
educational. For this reason I insist that while 
there is and may be a religious training, an intellec- 
tual training, a physical training, there is no such 
thing as religious education, or intellectual educa- 
tion, or physical education. One might as well 
imagine a triangular or a circular geometry. We 
do not at once feel the force of this statement, 
because of our loose, inaccurate, and inexact use of 
the word " education. " 

In my view education is part of the life-process. 

3 



4 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

It is the adaptation of a person, a self-conscious 

being, to environment, and the develop- 

Defimtion of men t f capacity in a person to modify or 

education. r \ r J ^ 

control that environment. The adaptation 
of a person to his environment is the conservative 
force in human history. It is the basis of continuity, 
solidarity. The development in a person of capacity 
to modify or control his environment gives rise to 
progress, change, development. Education, there- 
fore, makes for progress on the basis of the present 
acquisitions of the race. Its soundest ideals forbid, 
as a matter of course, both neglect of the historic 
past, and the blind worshipping of that past as an 
idol. The importance of the past lies in its lessons 
for the future. When the past has no such lessons, 
we forget it as quickly as possible. The survival of 
a tendency, a belief, or an institution is evidence that 
it is at least worth studying and that it must be 
reckoned with. These tendencies, beliefs, and insti- 
tutions are studied and reckoned with for the purpose 
of discovering their vital principles and of putting a 
value upon them. The working out of those vital 
principles is the future. 

In this view, education is first and chiefly a matter 
of principles. Then, and secondarily, it is a matter 
of methods. The place, character, and function 
Educational of religious training are to be settled, and 
principles. on \ y to k e settled, by reference to funda- 
mental educational principles. 

The first of these principles, and one of the most 
far-reaching, is discovered in framing an answer to 
the questions, What is the present environment of a 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 5 

human being ? What do we mean by the use of 
the word ' ' environment, ' ' and what do we . 

Environment. 

include in it, when we speak of it as that 
to which education tends to adapt a person ? We 
mean, I think, by the word " environment " two 
things: first, man's physical surroundings, and, 
second, that vast accretion of knowledge and its re- 
sults in habit and in conduct, which we call civiliza- 
tion. Natural forces play no small part in adapting 
human beings to both elements of environment, but 
the process of education is especially potent as re- 
gards adaptation to the second element, civilization. 
Civilization — man's spiritual environment, all his 
surroundings which are not directly physical — this it 
is which has to be conquered, in its elements at 
least, before one can attain a true education. It is of 
the highest importance that we make sure that we 
see clearly all the elements of the knowledge which 
is at the basis of civilization, and that we give each 
element its proper place in our educational scheme. 
We may approach the analysis of our civilization, 
or spiritual environment, from many different points 
of view, and perhaps more than one classi- g iritual 
fication of the results of that analysis may environment 
be helpful. The classification which I eme 
suggest, and which I have stated elsewhere in detail,* 
is a fivefold one. It separates civilization into man's 
science, his literature, his art, his institutional life, 
and his religious beliefs. Into one or another of 
these divisions may be put each of the results of 

* See Butler, " The Meaning of Education," pp. 17-31. 



6 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

human aspiration and of human achievement. Edu- 
cation must include knowledge of each of the five 
elements named, as well as insight into them all and 
sympathy with them all. To omit any one -of them 
is to cripple education and to make its results at best 
but partial. A man may be highly instructed and 
trained in science alone, or in literature, or in art, or 
in human institutions — man's ethical and political 
relationships — or in religion, but such a man is not 
highly educated. He is not educated, strictly speak- 
ing, at all, for one or more of the aspects of civiliza- 
tion are shut out from his view, or are apprehended 
imperfectly only, and without true insight. 

If this analysis is correct, and I think it is, then 
religious training is a necessary factor in education 
Keli ious an< ^ mus ^ ^ e gi yen the time, the attention, 
training one and the serious, continued treatment which 
divisknlof & deserves. That religious training is not 
education. a t the present time given a place by the 
side of the study of science, literature, art, or of 
human institutions, is well recognised. How has 
this come about ? How are the integrity and the 
completeness of education to be restored ? 

The separation of religious training from education 
as a whole is the outgrowth of Protestantism and of 
Its separa- Democracy. A people united in professing 

tion an out- ...... , fa 

growth of a religion which is ethnic or racial, or a 
Protestant- na tion giving adhesion to a single creed or 

ism and . . 

Democracy, to one ecclesiastical organization, always 
unite religious training with the other elements of 
education and meet no embarrassment or difficulty 
in so doing. During the undisputed dominance of 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 7 

the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, education 
not only included religious training as a matter of 
course, but it was almost wholly confined to religious 
training. Theology was the main interest of the 
Middle Ages, and the theological interest 

.,..,.. . Protestantism. 

caused religious training to permeate and 
subordinate whatever instruction was given in other 
subjects. Music was taught, that the church services 
might be well rendered. Arithmetic and astronomy 
were most useful in fixing the Church Festivals and 
the calendar. With the advent of the Protestant 
Reformation all this was changed. Religion was 
still strenuously insisted upon as a subject of study, 
but the other subjects of instruction became increas- 
ingly independent of it and were gradually accorded 
a larger share of time and attention for themselves 
alone. 

Protestantism, however, would not by itself have 
brought about the secularization of the school, as it 
exists to-day in France and in the United 
States. Democracy and the conviction 
that the support and control of education by the 
state is a duty in order that the state and its citizens 
may be safeguarded, have necessarily forced the 
secularization of the school. Under the influence of 
the Protestant Reformation and that of the modern 
scientific spirit, men broke away from adherence to 
a single creed or to a single ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion, and formed diverse sects, groups, parties, or 
churches, differing in many details from each other 
— the differences, I regret to add, being far more 
weightily emphasized than the more numerous and 



8 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

more important points of agreement. When the 
state-supported school came into existence, 

o S f t schook P ° rt this state of reli g ious diversity found ex- 
pression in dissatisfaction with the teach- 
ing, under state auspices, of any one form of religious 
belief. The first step toward the removal of this 
dissatisfaction was to reduce religious teaching to 
the lowest possible terms ; and these were found in 
the reading of the Bible, the recitation of the Lord's 
Prayer, and the singing of a devotional hymn at the 
opening of the daily school exercise. But even this 
gave rise to complaint. Discussions arose as to 
whether a single version of the Bible must be used 
in these readings, or whether any version, chosen by 
the reader, might be read. A still more extreme 
view insisted that the Bible itself was a sectarian 
book, and that the non-Christian portion of the com- 
munity, no matter how small numerically, were sub- 
jected to a violation of their liberties and their rights, 
when any portion of the public funds was used to 
present Christian doctrine to school children, even 
in this merely incidental way. The view that the 
state-supported schools must refrain absolutely from 
exerting any religious influence, however small, is 
one which has found wide favour among the American 
people. It has led to more or less sweeping provi- 
sions in State constitutions and in statutes against 
sectarian instruction of any kind at public expense. 
A judicial decision on this subject of great interest 
and of far-reaching importance is that rendered in 
1890 by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, in the 
case of the State ex rel. Weiss and others vs. the 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 9 

District Board, of School District No. 6, of the city of 
Edgerton.* In this case the essential ques- Wisconsin 
tion at bar was whether or not the reading c ^™e- 
of the Bible, in King James' version, in cision. 
the public schools was sectarian instruction, and as 
such fell within the scope of the constitutional and 
statutory prohibitions of such instruction. In an 
elaborate and careful opinion the court held that 
reading from the Bible in the schools, although un- 
accompanied by any comment on the part of the 
teacher, is ' ' instruction ' ' ; that since the Bible con- 
tains numerous doctrinal passages, upon some of 
which the peculiar creed of almost every religious 
sect is based, and since such passages may reason- 
ably be understood to inculcate the doctrines predi- 
cated upon them, the reading of the Bible is also 
''sectarian instruction"; that, therefore, the use of 
the Bible as a text-book in the public schools and 
the stated reading thereof in such schools, without 
restriction, "has a tendency to inculcate sectarian 
ideas," and falls within the prohibition of the consti- 
tution and the statutes. 

In this decision there are some very interesting 
observations on the general question of religious 
training and the place of the Bible in education. 
The court says, for example: "The priceless truths 
of the Bible are best taught to our youth in the 
church, the Sabbath and parochial schools, the social 
religious meetings, and, above all, in the home circle. 
There those truths may be explained and enforced, 

* Wisconsin Supreme Court Reports, 76; 177-221, 



io RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

the spiritual welfare of the child guarded and pro- 
tected, and his spiritual nature directed and culti- 
vated, in accordance with the dictates of the parental 
conscience." Judge Orton, in a supplementary 
opinion, adds: ''[The schools] are called by those 
who wish to have not only religion, but their own 
religion, taught therein 'Godless schools.' They 
are Godless, and the educational department of the 
government is Godless, in the same sense that the 
executive, legislative, and administrative depart- 
ments are Godless So long as our Constitution 
remains as it is, no one's religion can be taught in 
our common schools." 

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin has given forci- 
ble, definite expression to the view held by the large 
General majority of American citizens, and has 
American clothed that view with the authority of law. 
It is in this sense and for substantially the 
reasons adduced in the decision which I have quoted, 
that the American public school is secular and that 
it can give and does give attention to four of the five 
elements of civilization which I have named — science, 
literature, art, and institutional life — but none to the 
fifth element — religion. 

In France, the great democratic nation of Europe, 
the case is quite similar. The famous law of March 
View in 2 ^' l %% 2 > excluded religious instruction 
Prance. from the public schools, and put moral and 
civic training in its stead. M. Ribiere, in defending 
this provision before the senate, used almost the 
exact language later employed by the Supreme 
Court of Wisconsin. He held that the elementary 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. II 

school, maintained by the state, open to all, could 
not be used to teach the doctrines of any sect; that 
it must be neither religious nor anti-religious, but 
wholly secular, neutral. M. Paul Bert, who pre- 
sented the measure to the chamber of deputies, 
pointed out that the ' ' religious neutrality ' ' of the 
school was the logical outcome of the principle of 
the freedom of the individual conscience. "In our 
eyes," M. Bert continued, "this argument has so 
great force that, without the prohibition of religious' 
instruction in the schools, compulsory education 
would appear to us to be not an advantage, but a 
danger. ' ' In order that opportunity should be given 
to parents to provide religious instruction for their 
children — this is explicitly stated in the law — the 
schools are closed one day each week, other than 
Sunday. In France, Thursday, not Saturday as with 
us, is usually taken as the school holiday. 

This, then, is the condition of affairs in the United 
States and in France as regards religious training in 
education. The influence first of Protestantism and 
then of Democracy has completely secular- State edu- 
ized the school. The school, therefore, incomplete, 
gives an incomplete education. The religious 
aspect of civilization and the place and influence of 
religion in the life of the individual are excluded from 
its view. This is the first important fact to be 
reckoned with. 

The second fact is that the whole work of educa- 
tion does not fall upon the school. It cannot do so 
and ought not to do so. The family, the Church, the 
library, the newspaper, society itself, are all eduea- 



12 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

tional institutions as truly as is the school. The 

school is the most highly organized of them 

State schools n Its aims and me thods are the most de- 

not the only 

source of finite. But it is quite untrue to suppose that 
e nca ion. no thing enters into education save through 
the medium of the school-programme. Therefore, 
it does not follow that because the school has become 
secular, all religious influence and training have 
necessarily gone out of education. If the school is 
not distinctly religious, it is even more distinctly not 
anti-religious. The real question, then, is: — What 
are the other educational factors, especially the family 
and the Church, doing to see to it that school instruc- 
tion is rounded out into education through their 
co-operation ? It is the duty of the family 
and the an d the Church to take up their share of 
Church. ^he educational burden, particularly the 
specifically religious training, with the same care, 
the same preparation, and the same zeal which the 
school gives to the instruction which falls to its lot. 

Before coming to the implications of this position, 
there are one or two suggestions which must receive 
v , passing notice. It is said — by a very few 

importance it is true — that there is no such thing as 
o reigion. re lig;lon other than mere superstition, and 
that religion is not universal in any event, and there- 
fore that the fifth element of our civilization is but an 
empty name. It is urged, with Petronius, that fear 
first made the gods, and with Feuerbach that religion 
is man's most terrible ailment. These contentions 
seem to me to arise from simple ignorance, alike of 
history and of human nature. There is a response 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 13 

from the human heart and from the recorded thoughts 
and deeds of civilized men, based neither on 
credulity nor on fear, to the description of Hegel, 
that "religion is, for our consciousness, that region 
in which all the enigmas of the world are Definitions 
solved, all the contradictions of deeper- of religion, 
reaching thought have their meaning unveiled, and 
where the voice of the heart's pain is silenced — the 
region of eternal truth, of eternal rest, of eternal 
peace." If religion may be defined, in Dr. Mar- 
tineau's words, as "the belief and worship of 
Supreme Mind and Will, directing the universe and 
holding moral relations with human life," then 
civilization is unintelligible without it. Much of the 
world's literature and art, and the loftiest achieve- 
ments of men, are, with the religious element with- 
drawn, and without the motive of religion to explain 
them, as barren as the desert of Sahara. This 
proposition hardly needs argument. ' ' The religiosity 
of man is a part of his psychical being. 
In the nature and laws of the human mind, of ^JiXn? 7 
in its intellect, sympathies, emotions, and 
passions, lie the well-springs of all religions, modern 
or ancient, Christian or heathen. To these we must 
refer, by these we must explain, whatever errors, 
falsehood, bigotry, or cruelty have stained man 's 
creeds or cults; to them we must credit whatever 
truth, beauty, piety, and love have glorified and 
hallowed his long search for the perfect and the 
eternal. . . . 

' ' The fact is that there has not been a single tribe, 
no matter how rude, known in history or visited by 



14 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

travellers, which has been shown to be destitute of 
religion under some form." * 

But it is also urged that a satisfactory substitute 
for religious training is to be found in moral and civic 
Moral and instruction. This view is widely held in 
civic instruc- France and has led to some rather absurd 

tion no sub- ^ i i t 

statute for consequences, bo scholarly a writer as 
religion, ]yr r Thomas Davidson has just now urged 
this view upon us Americans, f He is able to do so, 
however, only by completely identifying religion and 
philosophy — and (as I think) a bad philosophy at 
that — in his definition of religion. But, in fact, the 
field of moral and civic instruction is quite distinct 
from man's religious life; it belongs to the institu- 
tional aspect of civilization. The moral aspect of 
life has long since come to be closely related to the 
Keii . is religious aspect, but nevertheless the two 
not ethics. are quite different. A religion, indeed, may 
be quite immoral in its influences and tendencies. 
It may lead to cruelty and sensuality, and yet be a 
religion. There have been not a few such. To con- 
fuse religion with ethics is to obscure both. Religion 
must be apprehended as something distinct and 
peculiar, if it is to be apprehended at all. Matthew 
Arnold was absolutely wrong when he wrote : ' ' Re- 
ligion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feel- 
ing; the passage from morality to religion is made 
when to morality is applied emotion. " It is still 



* Brinton, " Religions of Primitive Peoples," p. 30. 
f " American Democracy as a Religion," International Journal of 
Ethics, October, 1899. 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 15 

easier to make clear and enforce the distinction 
between morality and religion, if we substitute for the 
general term religion the highest type of all religions, 
Christianity. It is Christianity, of course, which we 
have in mind when speaking of religion. 

My argument thus far has aimed to make it clear 
that religious training is an integral part of education, 
that in this country the State school does The proper 
not and cannot include religious training in S^ 168 for 
its programme, that it must therefore be education 
provided by other agencies, and on as high "yandthT 
a plane of efficiency as is reached by in- Church. 
struction in other subjects, and that moral and civic 
training is no possible substitute for religious teach- 
ing. The agencies at hand for religious teaching are 
the family and the Church, and in particular the 
special school, the Sunday-school, maintained by the 
Church for the purposes of religious training. 

The Sunday-school is in this way brought into a 
position of great responsibility and importance, for it 
is, in fact, a necessary part of the whole educational 
machinery of our time. It must, therefore, be made 
fully conscious of the principles on which its work 
rests and of the methods best suited to the attainment 
of its ends. 

The Sunday-school must, first of all, understand 
fully the organization, aims, and methods of the 
public schools ; for it is their ally. It must The Sunday- 
take into consideration the progress of the school, 
instruction there given in secular subjects, and must 
correlate its own religious instruction with this. It 
must study the facts of child-life and development, 



16 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

and it must base its methods upon the actual needs 
and capacities of childhood. It must organ- 
tionand ize its work economically and scientifically, 
method. anc j ^ mus t demand of its teachers special 
and continuous preparation for their work. It must 
realize that it is, first and above all, an educational 
institution and not a proselytizing one, and that the 
inherent force of the truth which it teaches is far 
greater than any attempted bending of that truth to 
special ends. It must cease to be merely a part 01 
the missionary work of the parish, and become a real 
factor in the educational work of the community. 
It must give more time to its work, and the 
traditional division of time on Sunday will have to be 
gradually readjusted in order to make a serious 
Sunday-school session possible. A Saturday session 
may also be planned for. It must recognise that 
ordinarily no single parish or congregation can make 
proper provision for the religious training of all the 
young people under its care. The very largest 
parishes and congregations may be able to maintain 
a fully equipped Sunday-school for children from five 
to eighteen, but the smaller parishes and congrega- 
tions in towns and cities must learn to combine for 
their common good. Each parish or congregation 
may readily, and ought always, to maintain a Sunday- 
school of elementary grade, but several adjoining 
parishes or congregations must combine in order to 
organize and support a proper course of religious 
instruction for children of secondary school age and 
beyond, say from thirteen to eighteen years. In a 
whole city, unless it be New York or Chicago or 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 17 

Philadelphia, one, or at most two, training classes 
for Sunday-school teachers should be sufficient. 
Furthermore, Sunday-school teachers, like all other 
teachers, should be paid. They should be selected 
because of competence and special training; 
they should be led to look upon their work 
not as philanthropy, not even as missionary work, 
but as something which is larger than either because 
it includes both, namely, education. The several 
Christian bodies, so long as they remain distinct, will 
naturally maintain their own separate Sunday-school 
systems ; but within any given branch of the Christian 
Church, be it Protestant Episcopal, Presbyterian, 
Methodist, or other, all of the principles just stated 
can be applied. Sunday-schools so organized could 
be given the same systematic professional supervision 
that is provided for the secular schools. Each body 
of Christians in a given community could have its 
own Sunday-school board and its own Sunday-school 
superintendent and staff of assistants. Between 
some Christian bodies actual co-operation in Sunday- 
school instruction ought to be possible. For the 
proper organization and conduct of this religious 
instruction, there must be a parish or congregational 
appropriation, or, better far, an endowment fund, to 
bear the legitimate cost of religious teaching and its 
systematic professional supervision. 

The Sunday-school course of study must be looked 
after. It is at present — I say it with all respect — too 
exclusively pious. Religion is much more 
important in civilization and in life than of study. 
the Sunday-school now teaches. It is more real. 



1 8 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

It touches other interests at more points. The 
course of study of the future must reveal these facts 
and illustrate them. It must be carefully graded 
and adjusted to the capacity of the child. It must 
reach out beyond the Bible and the Catechism. It 
must make use of biography, of history, of geography, 
of literature, and of art, to give both breadth and 
depth and vitality to the truths it teaches and 
enforces. It must comprehend and reveal the fact 
that the spiritual life is not apart from the natural life 
and in antagonism to it, but that the spirit interpene- 
trates all life and that all life is of the spirit. The 
problem, then, is not religion and education, but 
religion in education. 

This, it may be said, is a radical programme, a 
Aradical counsel of perfection. Perhaps so. If so, 
programme, it will provide something to work toward. 
It will at least bring religious teaching under the in- 
fluence of those principles and methods which have 
of late years so vitalized all secular teaching. It will 
give to it modern instruments, text-books, and illus- 
trative material. 

Before dismissing these suggestions as impracti- 
cable, because in part unfamiliar, it is well to face the 
The aitema- alternative. It is that religious knowledge, 
tive. and with religious knowledge a good deal 

else which is worth saving, will go out of the life 
of the next generation. What appears important 
enough to the elder generation to be systematically 
organized, conscientiously studied, and paid for in a 
terrestrial circulating medium, will deeply impress 
itself upon the younger. What is put off with a 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 19 

hurried and unsystematic hour on Sunday will not 
long seem very much worth while. 

Already the effects of the present policy are being 
seen. To the average college student the first book 
of Milton's Paradise Lost is an enigma. Religions 
The epithets, the allusions, even many of ignorance 

-r«i ■ eVen i Q 

the proper names, are unfamiliar. This is colleges. 
due to ignorance of the Bible. It is necessary 
nowadays to know something about Christianity as 
well as to be a Christian. The study of history and 
of geography, in connection with the spread and 
development of Chistianity, is fascinating. The study 
of biography, in connection with the people of Israel 
and Old Testament history generally, may be made 
to put plenty of life into much that is now dead facts 
to be memorized. For older pupils, the study of 
church history, and of the part played by religious 
beliefs and religious differences in the history of 
European dynasties, politics, and literature will make 
it plain how moving a force religion is and has been 
in the development of civilization. Such pupils, too, 
are able to appreciate the Bible as literature, if it be put 
before them from that point of view. It is too often 
treated as a treasury of texts only, and not as living 
literature which stands, as literature, by the side of the 
world's greatest achievements in poetry and in prose. 
The heart is the ultimate aim of all religious 
appeals. But the heart is most easily reached by 
informing the intellect and by fashioning Heart best 
the will. Knowledge and conduct react on JJJ^J^ 
the feelings, and the feelings, the heart (so and will. 
to speak), are educated and refined through them. 



20 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION. 

This fact will never be lost sight of by any competent 
religious teacher, and his purpose will never be to 
amass in his pupils knowledge about religion alone, 
but to use such knowledge to direct, elevate, and re- 
fine the religious feelings and to guide and form con- 
duct into character. 

It is along such lines as these that the develop- 
ment of the Sunday-school, from a phase of parish 
mission work into an educational institution of 
co-ordinate rank with the secularized school must 
take place. There are numerous local problems to 
be solved, no doubt, and not a few practical diffi- 
culties to be overcome, but, if the ideal be once firmly 
grasped and the purpose to reach it be formed, the 
result cannot be doubtful. 



II. 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE 
CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

By the Rt. Rev. William Croswell Doane, D.D., LL.D., 
Bishop of Albany. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE II. 

The Three Functions of the Christian Church. 

The Prophetic Function, as Christ fulfilled it. 

The Church carries on His Work. 

Definition of Teaching. 

Teaching the Apostolic Mandate. 

The Church the Great Religious Teacher. 

The Extent of Truly Christian Teaching. 

Canon Scott Holland's View. 

Educational Work of the Church To-day. 

Religion in the Universities. Wrong View and its Answer. 

The modern Theologian's Weakness due to Erroneous Theories of 

the Faith. 
The Great Verities of the Christian Faith are above Investigation. 
Science and Religion not opposed to each other. 
The State-schools and Religious Education. 
Inadequacy of Parochial .Schools and Colleges. 
Every Large University should have a Church Hall. 
How the Church Hall would educate. 
The Wide Responsibility of the Church. 
The Modern Machinery now existing : (a) the Sunday-school; (6) 

the Pulpit. 
The Sunday-school and the Catechism. 
The Sunday-school and the Teachers, their Training, etc. 
The Place of the Pulpit. 

Need for Preaching of Faith and Life, more than for Eloquence. 
It is the same Old Word given in modern phrases. 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE 
CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

It is a plain and simple fact, a trite saying, a 
truism, almost, that in the three offices of our Lord's 
anointed Messiahship lie involved the three m ^ 

A . . Three ftmc- 

great functions of the Christian Church, tionsofthe 
Prophet He was, and priest and king. Chlircl1 ' 
And so there are in the Church, or rather so He 
continues in the Church, the things which St. Luke 
says He only " began to do and to teach" ; because 
in the Church's faith., in the Church's sacraments, 
and in the Church's polity or order, He teaches and 
offers and rules. We are concerned with the 
prophetic office, as He filled it, and as He entrusted 
it to the Church to carry on. 

Run along the lines of the story as we find it "in 
Holy Scripture and ancient authors." The Divine 
Master spent His earthly ministry, until the Prophetic 
time of the fulfilling of its final purpose, in ^^. B 
what the Apostles describe as their chief filled it. 
function, ''prayer, and the ministry of the Word." 
Sitting upon the mountain of the Beatitudes, He 
began His public teaching with the unfolding of that 
marvellous system of ethics, the clearest and most 

, 23 



24 THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

comprehensive compendium of morality, of the rule 
of life, of the relation between man and God, and 
between man and man, that was ever spoken to 
mortal ear: depicting character, defining motive, 
dealing with the great principles of obedience, of wor- 
ship, of prayer, of self-denial, of almsgiving, of mar- 
riage, of modes of speech; and detailing the great 
characteristic virtues of meekness, mercifulness, and 
righteousness, and purity, and poverty of spirit, and 
peacemaking: so that the world sits at His feet to- 
day, as did the people who heard the words fall from 
His lips, " astonished at His doctrine." And from 
that day on, everywhere, in the synagogue, in the 
upper room, in the house, and in the streets; in the 
fields, on the lake-shore, and in the ship; by para- 
bles, by doctrinal discourses, above and beyond all, 
by His life and example, He is the Prophet, the 
Teacher, the Educator of the world. 

And this was the mission that He gave to His 
followers. They were to "disciple all nations by 
The Church baptism," and then "to teach them to 
carries on observe all things, whatsoever He com- 
swor ' manded them." This was the work for 
which He specially endowed them with the Holy 
Spirit, "to bring all things to their remembrance, 
whatever He had taught them, " " and to guide them 
into all truth." So that we are ready to expect, 
what we actually find, the absorption of the Apostles 
in the occupation of teaching. I am not particularly 
in love with the Revisers' tendency always to translate 
didaxrj by the word ' teaching, ' because it seems a 
little to dilute the fact that this didax?} was a distinct 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 25 

and definite form of words, the " faith once for all 
delivered to the saints." But I am quite sure that 
we come short of the meaning of the word, and the 
method and the purpose of the early 
Church, if we confine the teaching office f e e a ^ onof 
only to its religious side; the faith, the 
doctrine certainly, but even more than this, the whole 
teaching and training of the Christian life. As 
between the rigorists, who know nothing in religion 
but doctrine, and the sensationalists, who substitute 
emotional excitement for the impression upon the 
intelligence of fixed and positive truth, there is not 
much to choose. Teaching has to do with the rule 
of faith and with the rule of life. It appeals not only 
to the feelings, to the conscience, to the will ; but to 
the intelligence of men. 

And so we find when the Angel of the Lord de- 
livered the Apostles out of the common prison, 
where they had been cast because they Teaching- the 
refused to obey the demand * * not to speak Apostolic 
at all or teach in the name of the Lord 
Jesus," the message to them was, (and they obeyed 
it,) "Go, stand and speak in the Temple to the 
people all the words of this life. " " And daily, in 
the Temple and in every house, they ceased not to 
speak and teach Jesus Christ. ' ' 

Nor is it otherwise with the great Apostle ' ' born 
out of due time," whose glory was, when he was in 
prison that ' ' the Word of God was not St, Paul, 
bound"; and the closing record of whose story 
in the Book of the Acts is that ' ' Paul dwelt two 
whole years in his own hired house and received all 



26 THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

who came in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of 
God, and teaching the things which concern the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

We are somewhat familiar with that old word, 
"the schoolmen," a technical mediaeval title for 
Christian philosophers. And we are still more 
familiar with a certain modern softness of speech 
which we have invented, to do away with what seems 
a coarse and controversial word, namely, "-parties 
in the Church," when we call them "schools of 
thought. ' ' But we do not realize, in either the 
The Church mediaeval or the modern use of the word, 
the great the facts to which it bears witness, namely, 
that the Church is the great teacher ; that 
its educational work is in many ways its first and 
largest work ; and that, very early in its story, Chris- 
tian schools were founded and carried on, in which 
the great teachers were trained, and were training 
disciples, in the particular form of truth which pre- 
sented itself to them. They were tremendous reali- 
ties and tremendous influences. Antioch and Alex- 
andria and Rome stand for the great educational 
forces of the post-Apostolic age, as they represented 
what we may perhaps call Oriental, Greek, and Latin 
philosophy and theology. Nor were they given over 
only to the discussion of technical theological ques- 
tions. Having from the very first to avoid that 
curious combination of natural religion and Christian 
philosophy called gnosticism, they reached out into 
all departments of thought and study and investiga- 
tion. 

That oldest contest between the two thoughts of 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH 27 

the Transcendence and the Immanence of God has its 

counterpart in what we may call the transcendence 

and the immanence of Christian teaching. One is 

the theory that the Church is only set to teach the 

articles of the Christian faith, with its great reservoirs 

of resource in the Bible, tradition, and the 

/— r Eztent of 

Creeds ; and the other, the far truer theory, true Christian 

that, because of the oneness of truth, no teacnin S' 

matter what its source or what its special subjects, 

Christianity has to do with every department of 

education. The schools, as they were called, were 

the successors of the Porch and the Grove. Plato and 

Aristotle were succeeded, or one perhaps might say 

continued, by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. 

And every weapon of intellectual polemics was 

gathered into the Christian armoury of defence. The 

sword of Goliath, as he represents unconsecrated 

intellect, was taken into the hands of the anointed 

of God, with which to complete the victory over this 

giant error. 

Canon Scott Holland says with great power in his 

' ' Logic and Life " : " We have lost much of that 

rich splendour, that large-hearted fulness of 

power, which characterizes the great Greek lan ^, s w ° rdSi 

masters of theology. We have suffered our 

faith for so long to accept the pinched and narrow 

limits of a most unapostolic divinity, that we can 

hardly persuade people to recall how wide was the 

sweep of Christian thought in the first centuries, how 

largely it dealt with these deep problems of spiritual 

existence and development, which now once more 

impress upon us the seriousness of the issues amid 



28 THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

which our souls are travelling. We have let people 
forget all that our creed has to say about the unity 
of all creation, or about the evolution of history, or 
about the universality of the divine action through 
the Word. We have lost the power of wielding the 
mighty language with which Athanasius expands the 
significance of creation and regeneration, of incarna- 
tion and sacrifice, and redemption and salvation and 
glory. ' ' 

Nor is this only an early phase of the Church's 
work. It has been its characteristic feature all along. 
Those great universities and schools of the Middle 
Ages, especially from the thirteenth century on, with 
their great names of Abelard and Peter Lombard 
and Duns Scotus and St. Thomas Aquinas, "the 
angel of the schools," as he was called, were the 
continuance of this method ; and the old foundations 
of learning in England and on the Continent bear 
witness to the fact, not only that in those times 
learning and knowledge were almost confined to 
ecclesiastics and ecclesiastical establishments ; but 
that the Church recognised its duty to educate 
Christianity and to Christianize education. That 
curious creation, Mallock, — who poses and poises on 
a seesaw of sophisms, between apparent agnosticism 
and concealed Roman Catholicism, — thinks that the 
security of the Bible depends now upon that Church 
which locked it away, for ages, from the people in 
an unknown tongue; and fills its Lectionary, not 
with Scriptures, but with the legends of her innumer- 
able and often questionable Saints. 

Tempting as this line of thought is, I am con- 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 29 

strained to turn from it to more immediate and per- 
sonal considerations of the question which is assigned 
to me, namely, "the Educational Work of Educational 
the Christian Church to-day. " And I wish work of the 
to speak of it along two lines: first, the nTm) ° ay ' 
need that Christianity shall lay hold upon the people 
with strong and vigorous hand: and secondly, that 
the preaching of the Church to-day needs to be 
deeper and broader and stronger, in its definite and 
persistent presentation of doctrine. 

I confess myself old-fashioned enough to have 
been shocked and startled by a recent editorial in a 
New York newspaper headed i ' Religion in i n the Uni- 
the University. ' ' Beginning with the state- Yersities> 
ment that, instead of compulsory attendance at re- 
ligious services, the students' attendance is sought 
by making the service attractive in the chapels them- 
selves, in their musical programme, and in the elo- 
quence and the distinctively modern sympathies and 
breadth of view of the preacher, the article goes on : 
" Yet his pulpit utterances are often in sharp contrast 
to the teachings of other departments of the university. 
He talks earnestly of God and of the influence of God 
in the world; but his conception of God, if judged by 
his way of expressing it, is apt to be totally at vari- 
ance with that expounded by his neighbour, the pro- 
fessor of philosophy. He talks of love, but his 
hearers have already learned that there can be no 
affection for the unknowable. He insists that men 
ought always to pray ; but his words of petition and 
request sound strange to the student of science, who 
cannot take a step in his own department save on 



3° THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

the assumption of the invariableness of natural law. 
He holds up the Bible as profitable for reproof, for 
correction, and for instruction in righteousness, and 
as in truth the very word of God; but those who 
listen are being elsewhere taught to approach the 
Bible, as they approach any other document, to dis- 
cover its composite authorship, to test rigidly its 
statements of alleged facts, and to separate its myths 
and legends from its historic records. No wonder 
that many an earnest student comes to feel that 
somehow things do not hang together, and that 
the emotional interest of the religious service is a 
bit divorced from its intellectual basis. The grounds 
of this discrepancy are mainly to be found, we 
think, in the persistent adherence to ancient formu- 
las and modes of expression, which still encumber 
so much of even the most advanced theological 
thinking. " 

I believe this is an unfair statement of university 
teaching in most of the great universities of America. 
Somewhat careful inquiry has only discovered that 
individual professors, in some few instances, turn their 
influence, in the classroom and in their personal in- 
tercourse with the students, towards rationalism and 
unbelief; but I cannot find, and I cannot believe, 
that in any university in this country, this is either 
the purpose or the tendency of the teaching, as a 
whole. But granting its possible truth, the remedy 
proposed by the writer is worse than the disease. As 
a reduction to an irrational and illogical impossibility 
I know nothing more extraordinary. Any parent 
who, with the knowledge of the fact (if it be a fact), 






THE EDUCATIONAL JVORK OF THE CHURCH. 31 

sends a boy into the presence of such a poisonous 
personality must be held accountable for the ship- 
wreck of his faith. 

" The modern ' orthodox ' theologian," the writer 
continued, ''is still too often under the tyranny of 
words and names. He still talks of the atonement, 
of redemption, of the Holy Spirit, of the Th , 
resurrection, and of the future life, appar- theologian's 
ently unmindful of the fact that many of 
the terms themselves belong to a view of things 
long since rendered untenable Himself much 
in sympathy with modern thought, and not igno- 
rant of the havoc which science and philosophy 
have played with old formulas, he still hugs the past, 
and fancies that the outgrown clothes of a former 
time may still be made to fit the bodies of critical 
and thoughtful men. The intention is good, but the 
result disastrous. There can be no sure and fruitful 
appeal when one's words must constantly be inter- 
preted, and their particular shade of meaning care- 
fully or acutely explained. It is the weakness of 
modern theology that, with the best intentions and 
the utmost honesty of purpose among those devoted 
to it, it is still bound to an outgrown terminology, 
and shows too little willingness to cut loose from its 
moorings and push boldly out into the main stream 
of human knowledge and thought. It is this un- 
willingness to venture something, this impotency of 
expression when talking of the religious life, that 
gives to theology so little influence, as yet, in the 
university, and makes some of the most eloquent of 
modern preachers seem, to a company of college 



32 THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

students, like birds who, despite much beating of 
the air, somehow fail to fly. 

All this is a sheer insult to the intelligence of 
thinkers, to the honesty of teachers, to the immuta- 
bility of truth. It is a petitio principii, a begging of 
the whole question, to which an answer of absolute 
denial is the only one that can be presented. The 
atonement, redemption, the resurrection, 

Erroneous , _ ... . 

theories of the future life, are not words or names, 
the faith. Certain theories about them, representing, 
for instance, the anger of the Father appeased by 
the sacrifice of the Son ; or teaching a limitation of 
the redemption to certain elect persons, or an irre- 
sistible redemption compelling universal salvation, 
no matter what the opposing will of the individual 
may be; or turning the Christian doctrine of the 
resurrection into a statement, whose object-lesson 
is a mummy and whose process is embalming, — these 
are, like all human accretions and additions, in 
process of stripping off and falling away ; not because 
of science and philosophy, but because of the gradual 
return from human theories to divine truths. This 
is one of those curious instances of a complete con- 
fusion of thought, under an apparent clearness of 
expression. The great verities of the Christian faith, 
dreamed of and foretold from the first ages of man's 
conscious thought, and brought to light by the 
The great teaching of Jesus Christ, are before and 
Christian beyond and above and apart from all ques- 
faith are tions of philosophy or science or intel- 

ahove all in- 

vestigation. lectual investigation. They are facts that 
centre in, and gather about, and grow out of, the 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 33 

one great fact, and the one great personality of 
human history, namely, the Incarnate Son of God. 
They are not in opposition to, or in contradiction of, 
or in antagonism with, any achievement of science, 
any attainment of reason, any conclusion of philoso- 
phy. They are in the upper air, the higher realm 
of belief. The words that express them, all imper- 
fectly, are nevertheless so radiant with the life that 
they contain, holding it as a crystal holds the light, 
that if you break them even into their component 
letters, each one will still hold and still show forth 
the illumination and the vitality. They are to-day, 
as they have been through all the centuries, the con- 
solation and the inspiration of the human race. And 
while the progressive inquiries of philosophy and the 
advancing discoveries of science do need and demand 
re-statement, yes, even the creation of a vocabulary, 
the coining of a new language, because the words 
must express hitherto unknown facts; the cardinal 
points of theology, the essential verities of religion, 
the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, stand 
and will stand, as they have since Nicea, Chalcedon, 
and Constantinople framed the old symbols, un- 
changeable as the everlasting hills. 

What is to be done, then, about this greatly ex- 
aggerated conflict between the classroom and the 
chapel, between the pulpit and the pro- Confl . t f 
fessor ? First of all, I think, the " ne sutor classroom 
supra crepidam, ' ' the cobbler sticking to m ape ' 
his last. By which I mean to say that most of the 
trouble is made by the crude conclusions of secular 
teachers, and by the cruder contradictions of religious 



34 THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

teachers. There are a good many very different 
spirits of investigation among men, along all lines of 
study. Of course the one object ought to be to dis- 
cover truth ; to accept it at all costs and in all con- 
fidence when it is found, whatever may be the 
seeming difficulties. The cost may be the sacrifice 
of some opinion, cherished because associated with 
the traditions and impressions of all our lives; but 
the confidence ought to be that no real discrepancy 
can exist between or among any truths that God 
yields up to our knowledge, out of any of His 
innumerable treasure-houses. The real trouble is 
(and it is folly to conceal it) that religious teachers 
are too often contending for certain views and notions 
and opinions of or about the truth, instead of for the 
truth itself. And the other greater trouble is (and 
it is folly to conceal that) that many of the so-called 
scientists hail with such ghoulish glee any discovery 
which apparently shows the errancy of Holy Scrip- 
ture, that they give the impression, at any rate, that 
their chief object in life is to diminish the authority 
of the Bible. This of course is aside from the prac- 
tical suggestion of this discussion. 

The attitude of the Church toward education is a 
problem difficult to solve. Beginning with our 
The State public-school system of education and going 
schools. up to the university, we must face the fact 
that the State is obliged to educate all children, for 
her own protection against the dangerous element of 
illiteracy: and that the State must, so far as her 
schools are supported by taxation, absolutely refuse 
to allow any distinctive religious teaching in them. 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 35 

I am not forgetting the fact of the equally dangerous 
element of what one might call criminal literacy; 
that is to say, of the possibility, where no attempt is 
made to affect the conscience or the character, in 
schools, of simply making criminals more capable 
by knowledge, than they would be without it. If 
learning the three R's, as they are called, means 
merely to induce boys to become railroad-wreckers 
by reading the American equivalents for the Penny 
Dreadful; to make accomplished instead of clumsy 
forgers ; or to make men more competent than they 
would be if they were ignorant of arithmetic, to 
make false entries and so rob their employers; it 
goes without the saying that the State has hurt itself 
by its very effort at education. But at the same 
time it is idle to argue the question, it seems to me, 
as though it were an open one, as against the 
common-school system, which, even if it is without 
religion, ought not to be called ' ' Godless " ; or to 
attempt by any device, out of school hours, to inject 
religious teaching into it. The moralities, the 
recognition of God, of personal responsibility, of the 
conscience, of law, of duty, — all these there may be, 
but the teaching of dogmatic religion is an impossi- 
bility in the unhappy divisions of our Christian 
bodies; and the theory of teaching an undogmatic 
religion is as self-contradictory as the imagining of 
an invertebrate mammal, of a man without a back- 
bone. And while in abstract sentiment, I should be 
thankful if every child of ours were trained in a 
parochial school, and then went on through a 
Church school and a Church college, I recognise the 



36 THE EDUCATIONAL IVORK OF THE CHURCH. 

practical impossibility and the possible disadvantage. 
Inadequacy The impossibility, because no one com- 
of parochial mun i on much less all the religious bodies, 

schools and ' & 

colleges. could by any possibility compete with the 
State in the attempt to make a large number of 
denominational schools, as thorough and complete as 
the tax-supported schools are. And a possible dis- 
advantage exists, because in order to make a homo- 
geneous community it is better that all sorts and 
conditions of children should be thrown together in 
school and college life. The divisions of Christendom 
are bad enough in the inevitable separations of public 
worship. To perpetuate them in general education, 
and to inject them into our institutions of charity, 
would be disastrous to the fellowship of men in the 
duties of their common citizenship. Where they may 
be had, by all means let us have our Church schools 
and our Church colleges, where the Church can 
demonstrate its capacity for training the three-fold 
nature of a child ; with the best athletic advantages, 
with the highest intellectual cultivation, with the 
most positive spiritual training and development of 
the soul. And let us thank God for St. Paul's, and 
Groton, and St. Marks; for St. Mary's, and St. 
Agnes, and St. Margaret's; for Trinity, Hobart, and 
St. Stephen's; Sewanee and the rest; and may they 
be multiplied and prospered ! 

What I should be most glad of would be the 
carrying out of what has been in the conception of 
one at least, I know, of our great university presi- 
dents, namely, the founding of a Church hall, with 
its dormitories, its commons, its chapel, as one of the 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 37 

grouped colleges in every great university of the land. 
First, that the small college might have Every large 
the benefit of the advantages of the big university 

should have 

university; and secondly, and still more, a Church 
that the Church's system of teaching might naUi 
show its power, side by side with any other system in 
the world. Because it is to be insisted on that the 
Church has a system of education in the largest 
sense of the word. She will teach astronomy upon 
the principle that ' ' the heavens declare 
the glory of God, and the firmament church 
sheweth His handywork." She will teach W0Tdd teacL 
the languages, with a view to bringing out of the 
old classics those dim dreams which outlined the 
completed truth of Revelation, when the glorious 
Greek language had found its final purpose in lend- 
ing its splendid seed-power of suggested meaning to 
the (T7reppto\6yos, the babbler, the seed-scatterer, 
the impersonation and representative of the one 
Sower who went out to sow. Or she will gather 
out of them, as St. Paul did from Aratus, the forgot- 
ten truth of God's all-fatherhood; and the distortion, 
in the devious twist of traditions, of the truths found 
in their due place and relation, only in the primeval 
revelation of God to man. The Heracles of Balau- 
stion's Adventure will be a prophecy of the only 
victor over death: 

" To herald all that human and divine, 
F the weary happy son of him, half god, 
Half man, which made the god-part, god the more." 

The Sibylline oracles in her translation will be 
broken echoes of the Hebrew prophets. She will 



3 8 THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

point out in her ethical system the patient progress 
of the divine presentation of morality, which recog- 
nised the necessity of adaptation and slow growth and 
gradual uplifting, until it rose from the enactments 
and prohibitions of Mount Sinai, to the sublime 
height of motive and character in the Sermon on the 
Mount. She will teach history, in order that it may 
unfold the equally patient providence of God in His 
dealing with the children of men, revealing little by 
little the divine purposes in the development of the 
human race. Her geographical maps will contain, 
not the camps of armies only, or the ports of com- 
merce, or the centres of accumulated wealth, but the 
pathways of the Pilgrims, the tracks of the Crusaders, 
the lighthouses of learning in ages of surrounding 
darkness, and the way of the ships through the 
waves, which carried round the world preachers of 
the everlasting Gospel. And her literature will not 
content itself in the study of what the French people 
call " beautiful letters," with the literce humaniores, 
but will lead men on and up to the literce diviniores, 
the unequalled and unrivalled dignity and glory of 
the English Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. 
And what else, what more, in the existing condi- 
tion of things is the practical possibility of educational 
work, which this Church can do and should do in the 
Wide re- world ? I have tried to emphasize my own 
sponsibiiity conviction that the Church's commission 

of the Church. and ^ Church > s duty include) by the 

Divine Intention, education in the largest and com- 
pletest sense of the word ; that, as in the past, so now 
and for all time, she ought to influence and impress 



THE EDUCATIONAL IVORK OF THE CHURCH. 39 

the literature and the learning of the world, colouring 
it, consecrating it, controlling it for the service of 
God. I feel free therefore to deal with two matters 
as to the distinct and definite trust which is her 
highest honour and her greatest responsibility, 
namely, the positive and perpetual assertion of ' ' the 
truth as it is in Jesus," of "the faith once for all 
delivered to the saints. ' ' And her natural and usual 
machinery to this end is of course in catechetical 
teaching and in preaching. 

For the first, there is the existing machinery of the 
Sunday-school, which is on the one hand, I think, 
unduly exalted, and on the other unwisely The Sunday- 
decried. It is of course a modern make- scn ° o1 ' 
shift devised to deal with great masses of children 
otherwise uncared for and unprovided with any 
religious training in homes or in churches. It can 
never be the substitute for either parental or pastoral 
responsibility. But as a recognised and wide-spread 
machinery, it cannot be ignored and it ought to be 
improved. I am sorry to say that I think it is suffer- 
ing to-day from the same evil influences which so 
largely infect and infest the public ministry of the 
word ; namely, the sensational recourse to all manner 
of strange devices to attract and entertain and amuse. 
The childhood of a Christian child in the Church is 
divided into two parts, separated from each other by 
the act of confirmation. And the Church has pro- 
vided for the first of these periods a Manual of 
Training, incomparable in clearness, comprehensive- 
ness, logical sequence, and theological sufficiency, in 
the Catechism. We have a superabundant set of 



4o THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

manuals upon this Manual, which have I am afraid 

overlaid, in some degree, what Mr. Keble called its 

" heavenly notes." To learn it, until its wise and 

m ^ n A well-weighed words enter into and make 

The Cate- ° 

chismin part of a child's thought about religion, is 

the Church, the first thing tQ be done . and then tQ keep 

it fresh in memory, by its frequent repetition; and 
then to gather about its various statements the scrip- 
tural proofs of its every separate phrase ; and then 
to illustrate it by the parallel passages, which abound 
in the Collects and various Offices of the Book of 
Common Prayer; and then to develop them and 
apply them as they reach out and touch the faith, 
the obedience, the worship, the means of grace, the 
life. Next in importance, in value, in power of in- 
fluence to the creeds, the Catechism ought to be the 
framework, about which all other instruction shall 
build the beauty and the fulness of the system of the 
Church. 

In order to do this the first essential is the training 
of the teacher. They cannot teach what they do not 
Teachers' know. And that training depends largely 
th^Eeftor's u P on the Rector's realization of his own 
personal duty, responsibility. Really and truly, the Sun- 
day-school teacher is only the alius or the alia 
through whom he does his duty. And no Sunday- 
school is complete, or is in the way of large accom- 
plishment, that is not preceded and prepared for by 
the Rector's class for his teachers. And for the 
period after Confirmation, there ought to be classes 
or some other provision for the constant study of the 
Word of God. Slowly and without the recognition 






THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 4* 

which it richly deserves, the Society for the Home 
Study of Holy Scripture and Church History The teacher , s 
is leavening the Church. If every woman, preparation. 
who teaches in a Sunday-school, were a member of 
this Society, the result would be felt in energy, in 
interest, in what the Prayer-book calls "the live- 
liness of the Word, ' ' and in effect. Bible study with 
all its side-lights, yes, and with all its foot-lights, of 
technical and textual criticism, Bible study, critical 
and devotional, is the great desideratum of our day. 
And this Church, which saturates her children with 

the Holy Scriptures, which knows no public 

. , , r 1 • Bible study. 

service without the foremost place given 

to the reading and hearing of the Word, which dares 

and is determined to put the whole Word of God, in 

the language which they understand, openly, freely, 

continually, before her people; this Church in her 

relation to education must foster the study of the 

Bible in every possible way. 

The next place of educational value and power is 

the Christian pulpit. Diverted and degraded and 

for a time almost displaced from its high 

dignity, as the place of the prophet, we The place of 

, . r 1 -r 1 • 1 the pulpit. 

need to recognise far more than I think we 
do its due position in the Church's work of educa- 
tion. I know all that can be said and is said about 
sermons. I remember the phase (passing somewhat 
now) when it was thought necessary to belittle the 
pulpit in order to magnify the Altar, when people 
sneered at what they were pleased to call the 
' ' sacrament of preaching. ' ' Carried along with the 
debris of that great current of spiritual life, known 



42 THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

as the Oxford movement, and thrown up like rubbish 
on shallow places where it stuck, as though it were 
the only outcome and purpose of that rushing and 
swelling tide, this idea never was in the minds or 
hearts or examples of the men who were behind the 
movement. Their very first power was their preach- 
ing. The massive weight of Pusey's learning; the 
crystal purity of Keble's poetry and prose; the in- 
comparable beauty of Newman's sentences; the ring 
of Manning's earlier English, — these were the forces 
of the prophets, " clamantes in deserto. " That 
their influence led to more reverent worship, higher 
appreciation of sacramental grace, more regard for 
disused and forgotten customs and traditions of 
primitive ages, is perfectly true. But they never 
Proper taught and never meant to teach, and it is 

preaching. a corrU pt following of their great leader to 
hold that one can only dignify the sacramental, by 
depreciating the homiletical, element in the Christian 
ministry. Those two queer object-lessons of the 
old-fashioned arrangement (modern old-fashioned, I 
mean), by which either the pulpit got behind the 
Altar in the place of chief honour and conspicuous- 
ness, or got right in front of the Altar to obscure, if 
not to conceal it, had, I have no doubt, their inten- 
tional significance. But it is high time for men, 
charged with the ministry of Jesus Christ, to rise to a 
clear vision of the duty and the dignity of preaching. 
Not the least power of the Altar is its proclamation; 
as the Master made the cross not merely the one 
only Altar of a true and perfect sacrifice, but also the 
pulpit of the seven sentences and of the seven 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 43 

silences, which have filled the wide world and drawn 
all men unto Him. There are very, very few, (here 
and there one,) with special power as preachers. 
What is commonly known as the popular preacher 
is too often a very poor caricature of the prophet. 
There is hardly a more pitiful or painful element in 
our modern religionism than the column in the 
Saturday newspaper which gives the subjects of the 
so-called sermons for the next day. But the ques- 
tion is not of personal power or of personal popu- 
larity, much less of sensationalism and excitement. 
It is simply one of directness, earnestness, care- 
fulness, thoroughness, plainness, completeness, in 
bringing home to men's hearts the message of God. 
Not latitudes nor platitudes; neither altitudes nor 
attitudes ; but the preaching, which dear Archbishop 
Benson said was neither high nor low nor broad, but 
deep. In all time, God has been pleased to take 
and use and consecrate the wonderful gift of articulate 
speech, and the marvellous organs of the human 
voice, to be the medium through which He should 
communicate with man. The old ' ' segnius imitant ' ' 
does not apply to this. Nothing will take its place ; 
and the talk about the Sunday newspaper or the 
magazine as satisfying this need is idle and untrue. 
It is an excuse which would, I believe, be done 
away with if (and which is now contradicted where ?) 
men throw themselves into the simple, straight- 
forward, earnest delivery of their message to their 
brother men. 

It is not eloquence that is needed, it is teaching, 
definite, distinct, positive, plain, insistent, about the 



44 THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 

two inseparable things, — the Faith and the Life ; the 
Notelo- W G of faith, and the faith in the life. Let 

quencebut us magnify our prophetic office. Not pass- 
teaching of . & / r r r 
Faith and mg events, not popular excitement, not 
Life. personal views; and on the other hand, 
not remotearchaisms and unhuman speculations ; but 
the old truth in the new words, translated, that is 
to say, into the language of common speech. 

They showed me the other day, at the Oxford 
University Press, what they call the "knapsack 
Bible, ' ' made exactly to fit into its place ; and 
bound in the same stuff of which is made the uni- 
forms of the British soldiers in South Africa. That 
The Old is the thought. The Old Word of God, 
modern 11 taught in phrases that fit the mental opera- 
phrases, tions of the time ; and presented in a form 
that adapts itself to the habits and needs of the 
leaders and fighters and sufferers and conquerors of 
the world. It is the marvellous advance of chemical 
science, which has revolutionized the treatment of 
physical disease; more even than the discoveries of 
materia medica: new media, new solvents, new com- 
binations of the old healing herbs and roots and min- 
erals, found everywhere side by side with the diseases 
they are meant to cure. For us, the mysteries of 
truth and grace, which the great Healer once for all 
has made known to us, can have no additions. It 
rests with us to find in the knowledge of ourselves, in 
the study of mankind, in careful keeping ourselves in 
touch with the subtle vanities of old deceits, and old 
diseases of the soul, as they take new form and 
colour, in the changing circumstances and conditions 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE CHURCH. 45 

of the world ; it is for us, God guiding and helping 
us to deep insight and wide outlook, to find the ways 
and words, through which we may be such evangelists 
and physicians, that "by the wholesome medicines 
of the doctrine that we deliver, all the diseases of 
men's souls may be healed. " And the healing will 
be, as the St. Luke's Day Collect asks for the prev- 
alence of the prayer, ' ' through the merits of Jesus 
Christ, our Lord. 



III. 



THE PRESENT STATUS OF RELIGIOUS 

INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND, 

FRANCE, GERMANY, AND 

THE UNITED STATES. 

By Professor Charles De Garmo, Ph.D., of Cornell 
University. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE III. 

Religious Instruction in England. 

Origin of Religious Instruction in the schools, through Lancas- 
ter and Dr. Bell. 

Lancaster's simple scheme of paid teachers, with multiplying 
scholars. 

Its failure. 

Government Grants the next step. 

Organization of Board-schools the final one. Similar to 
American schools. 

Religious Instruction made optional in the Day-schools. 

Rise of Sunday-schools, under Robert Raikes, 1780. 

Thus two systems in England. 

Religious Instruction in France. 

None in the Public Schools. Thursday holiday for Church 
and home instruction. 

Religious Instruction in Germany. 

Day-schools impart practically all. 
Most thorough system in the world. 
Critical spirit in universities. 
Kirchner's view. 

Religious Instruction in the United States. 

Threefold end of all Religious Instruction. 
Inadequacy of America in point of Christian Knowledge. 
Compares favourably in points of Christian Spirit and Chris- 
tian Conduct. 

Improvements suggested in American Schools. 

Arrangement of Material for Childhood, Adolescence, and 

Youth. 
Crucial Period of Adolescence. 
Wrong Treatment after this period. 
"Religious exercises " in England and America. 
Great need for wiser action. 
Man's Relation to his fellows. 
Need for Improvement of the Sunday-schools. 






RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND, 
FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 

Of the four countries, embraced in our survey, 
two, namely, France and the United States, England 
have only private or denominational instruc- JJoubl/svs- 
tion. England has a double system, having- tern. 
a Sunday-school organization scarcely inferior to our 
own and a system of religious instruction in Day- 
schools reaching nearly all of the children 
of the empire. Germany relies pre-emi- 
nently upon the official instruction in religion given 
in her Day-schools, supplementing this by an amount 
of Sunday-school instruction which reaches less than 
a tenth of her children. 

Whenever we think of a possible system of religious 
instruction in our Day-schools, an end most ardently 
desired by all who believe that the young origin of re- 
should be thoroughly trained in religious ligi°usin- 

11 t- structionm 

knowledge, we look instinctively to Eng- English 
land, as an example of what can be accom- sclloolSi 
plished in a free Protestant nation, where the people 
are determined to regard this as an essential of any 
acceptable school system. A brief survey of the 
educational history of England for the last hundred 
years will show the genesis of her school system. 

49 



50 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

When the nineteenth century opened, education 
in England was a prerogative of the aristocratic and 
well-to-do. The masses of the people were in dense 
ignorance of everything that their personal experi- 
ence failed to teach them. There was no system of 
public schools and but a meagre and unsatisfactory 
provision of any kind for the masses. It was, how- 
ever, a period of activity in religion, so that in 
England as in Germany, at the time of the Reforma- 
tion, the leaders in religious life began to feel very 
keenly that it was the paramount duty of every lover 
of his kind to see that all the children were trained 
in the elements of religious knowledge. At this 
time, England, if not poor, was at least penurious 
with respect to education. Democracy was only 
beginning to feel the impulse of a new life, and the 
idea had not dawned upon statesmen that the people 
as a whole had any responsibility for the care of in- 
dividual children. 

In answer to this awakening consciousness of 
religious need among the people, there came forward 
two men, Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell. The 
Lancaster labours of Lancaster began first, and cul- 
andBell. minated in the organization of the famous 
British and Foreign School Society, which represented 
in general the dissenting elements of English religious 
life. From the activity of Dr. Bell, beginning at a 
somewhat later date, arose the much greater National 
Society, which represented the interests of the Church 
of England. There began at this time an exceed- 
ingly active rivalry between these two societies for 
the control of elementary education. 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 51 

It is an interesting circumstance that both of these 
systems proposed to establish the social and religious 
regeneration of the nation at a very nominal cost. 
Lancaster brought with him from India an T . . 

& Lancaster's 

idea which enabled him at once to com- scheme, 
mand the warmest admiration of every philanthropist 
in England, since he proposed a system which would 
give intellectual life just as spiritual life is supposed 
to be given, — without money and without price. 
His scheme of education is to be paralleled in the 
mechanical world only by the schemes for perpetual 
motion which attack ambitious but untrained minds. 
His plan was an exceedingly simple one. He pro- 
posed himself to take a class of ten boys and instruct 
and drill them in a limited field of knowledge with 
great thoroughness; then to have each of these ten 
boys gather another class of ten boys, and teach 
them what he himself had been taught. Similarly, 
each of these hundred boys would gather a class of 
ten other boys about him and instruct them in the 
knowledge which he himself had gained. Thus, at 
one stroke, a single teacher would be able to teach 
a thousand boys. Nothing could be more alluring 
from a financial standpoint to a people not yet 
awakened to the duty of society for educating its 
young. 

Rival religious bodies seized upon the idea with 
great avidity and established schools everywhere. 
It would be a poor community that could not furnish 
one good teacher for a thousand children. But since 
the leading motive of the organization and main- 
tenance of this school was the religious one, it followed 



52 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

as a matter of course that training in the catechisms, 
How it creeds, and formulas of the respective 

succeeded, churches formed the centre of the instruc- 
tion. After the schools had been thus conducted for 
the first quarter of the century, it was found that the 
best efforts of a community were unable to meet the 
growing necessities of the schools for more and better 
teachers, and for the equipments necessary for carry- 
ing on the great system of public education. It was 
found that there were large areas of country in which 
no provision whatever was made for the education of 
the poor. 

Appeal was made to Parliament in 1833 for assist- 
ance, and, after much debate, Parliament responded 
by its first grant of a hundred thousand dollars to 
Government these so-called voluntary schools. Most 
grants. f them were under the control of the 

National Society, which represented the Church of 
England. From 1833 onward to the present, gov- 
ernment grants increased in amount and regularity, 
until they have now arrived at enormous propor- 
tions. 

The schools under ecclesiastical control continued 
to be the sole means for public education down to 
1870. At this time, parliamentary investi- 
S^toL £ ation showed that th ere were large gaps 
in the system, which it was quite impossible 
for the private schools to fill. They therefore estab- 
lished a system of public education under the title of 
Board schools. School districts were laid out, school 
boards elected, local taxes levied, and a system of 
education, not unlike our American free public 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 53 

schools, was inaugurated. All of these schools at 
first, however, charged tuition fees, as the _. . . 

Origin of 

Church schools have always done. But the Board- 
sentiment for free public education has so sc 00 s ' 
developed, that, in London and Birmingham and 
many other places, the Board schools are now abso- 
lutely free, as they are in this country. The Board 
schools have naturally grown in popularity and ex- 
tent, until, from the beginning in 1870, they have 
increased their attendance so that now 42$ of all 
the children attend these schools ; 44^ attend the 
schools of the Church of England under the control 
of the National Society; 3$ attend the Wesleyan 
schools; 5$ the Roman Catholic; and nearly 6$ 
attend British undenominational and other schools. 

When the Board schools were established, the 
question of religious instruction naturally arose. 
After extended discussion, it was finally concluded 
that religious instruction must be given, but that it 
could not be denominational. Therefore, the Board 
schools are not allowed to teach catechisms or creeds 
or church formulas, or to institute distinctive ecclesi- 
astical ceremonies. 

There naturally arose very early, in connection 
with government grants to private Church schools, 
the question of religious toleration in connection with 
the instruction of religious subjects. It was very 
soon seen to be absolutely necessary that people, who 
were so situated that they could attend only Church 
schools, should be protected in their religious rights 
wherever the belief of the parents differed from that 
of the institution to which they sent their children. 



54 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

It never would do, Englishmen thought, to allow a 
r, ,. . great church corporation like the National 

Religious & L 

instruction Society to spread its religious propaganda 
op iona . am ong the people at the expense of the 
government. It was therefore very quickly provided, 
in the so-called "conscience clause," that the 
religious instruction of the school should not be 
forced upon the children of unwilling parents, and it 
was finally arranged that such religious instruction 
must be given either at the beginning or the close of 
the school day, so that pupils might absent them- 
selves from these exercises without losing any of the 
advantages of the school. In this way there was 
established a system of religious instruction, denomi- 
national in the Church schools and undenominational 
in the Public Board schools, which could reach 
almost every child in the land. 

A second corollary of public grants to private in- 
stitutions was that every school, which availed itself 
of the advantages of the grants, should subject itself 
to governmental inspection. There thus grew up 
in England a system of school examinations by 
government authorities such as no other English- 
speaking nation has, and in connection with this the 
famous system of payment by results. When it was 
said in Parliament that these schools might use the 
government grants almost solely for spreading their 
religious doctrines and might neglect all the great 
purposes of a secular education, Mr. Lowe cut the 
Gordian knot by proposing that the schools should 
receive grants in proportion to the efficiency of their 
instruction in secular branches, and he carried the 



ENGLAND, PRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 55 

majority of Englishmen with him when he said that 
if these schools were poor, they should at least be 
cheap, and if they were dear, they should at least 
be efficient. It was early provided, however, that 
there should be no inspection of religious training in 
the private schools. In the Public Board schools, if 
I mistake not, examinations are offered in religious 
subjects. We can thus see how a great, free, 
democratic people has succeeded in providing 
elementary instruction for every child in the land, 
and at the same time has provided religious train- 
ing for all who desire it in connection with secular 
education. 

The outcome of such a system is in startling con- 
trast to the system which has developed in our own 
country, whereby religion as a subject of o ontraste( i, 
instruction appears to be forever banned withAmeri- 
from our public schools. The constitution cans y sen1, 
of almost every state in the Union forbids the sub- 
sidizing of church schools at public expense, while 
the division of our population into a large number of 
powerful religious organizations makes it practically 
impossible to obtain public consent to any form of 
religious teaching. 

In England, as is well known to this assembly, 
there began a system of religious instruction in 
Sunday-schools under the leadership of 

t» i t% m • o r~, , 1 Rise of the 

Robert Raikes in 1780. These schools s^day-school 
have steadily grown in popularity, exten- s y stem - 
sion, and efficiency, until the number of students 
under their tuition is greater than the number of 
children in the Day-schools of Great Britain. We 



56 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

thus see growing up side by side a double system of 
religious instruction in which the Day-schools may 
be presumed to give the body of religious knowledge, 
while the Sunday-school would naturally be relied 
upon to impart the true religious spirit to the know- 
ledge acquired, since, far more than the Day-school, 
it enjoys the sanctions of the Church and the influence 
of the religious ceremonial. Ideally, therefore, the 
English system leaves little to be desired in its 
opportunities for bringing up the youth of the land, 
" in the fear and admonition of the Lord. 

Turning now for a moment to France, we find 
a country predominantly Roman Catholic in confes- 
sion, although both Protestant and Jewish 
religions likewise enjoy state support. It 
would seem that in a country, in which all large 
religious bodies are subsidized by the state, it would 
be natural and easy to have a regular system of 
religious instruction in connection with the Day- 
schools. This, however, is not the fact. No reli- 
gious instruction whatever is given in connection with 
the secular schools, but Thursday is set apart as a 
No religious school holiday, in which children may 
in S pubiic 011 re ceive religious instruction at the hands of 
schools. the several denominations to which their 
parents belong. To what extent the children are 
actually instructed, I am not informed. The Sunday- 
school naturally, under such conditions, would not 
have a flourishing growth in France. We find that 
but some sixty thousand scholars are enrolled in 
such institutions. 

Turning now to German}', we find that practically 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 57 

all serious religious instruction is imparted in the 
Day-schools, and predominantly by the 
regular teachers employed for secular in- 
struction. The Sunday-school in that country, as in 
France, has had but a meagre development, less 
than one-tenth of the children receiving any Religious in- 
instruction whatever in such institutions. st ractlon 
t i - -4.1. r ■*. • S^en by 

In explaining the German system, it is state-schools. 

important to remember that there are but two strong 
religious organizations in that country, the Roman 
Catholic, chiefly at the south, and the Lutheran, 
chiefly at the north, both being under state support 
and control. In that country, moreover, practically 
all schools are under direct governmental control, 
and in very important particulars have their policy 
directed from central government bureaus. Thus, 
for instance, the curriculum of study is in the main 
prescribed by the ciritiis minister. The subject of 
religion always stands first in programmes of studies, 
both as they emanate from the bureau, and as they 
stand in the daily school programme. Four or five 
hours of religious instruction per week are required 
in every German school. 

Probably in no other country in the world is the 
religious instruction so systematically and thoroughly 
given as in Germany. The principal func- Mosttho- 
tion of the German school is officially rough in the 
declared to be the making of God-fearing, 
patriotic, self-supporting citizens. The Germans 
would no more think that religion could be omitted 
from the programme of instruction, than that mathe- 
matics or languages could be left out, Every teacher 



58 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

in that country receives religious training for his 
work, although not every teacher gives religious in- 
struction in the schools. This is usually assigned to 
those who are best fitted by temperament and 
acquirements to impart it. 

The hour for religious instruction is the first one in 
the morning. The curriculum in the early grades is 
Th ' m mac ^ e U P °f Bible stories, mostly biographi- 
and curricu- cal, the memorizing of Church hymns, the 
Catechism, and selected Scriptural texts. 
In the middle grades, it is the aim to present a tole- 
rably complete idea of the Christian religion, as 
expounded by Luther, some Church history, and the 
meaning of the forms and ceremonies of the Church. 
In the upper grades of secondary instruction, no 
more formal memorizing is required, but there are 
frequent reviews to help the pupils retain what they 
have previously learned. The general study of the 
history, antiquities, and literature of Holy Writ and 
the history of the Christian Church is introduced. 
Special attention is given in all classes to broad 
reading, research, and exegesis, not of passages alone, 
but of complete parts and books. When the Bible 
is placed in the hands of the children, it is always 
an expurgated edition. A favourite method, however, 
is instruction by means of text-books covering selec- 
tions from the Bible commentary, geography and 
history of the Holy Land, history of the Jews, sum- 
mary of the New Testament teachings, Luther's 
small Catechism, the Church Calendar and the 
Church hymns. 

Of the effect of this instruction upon the whole 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 59 

people, there are many views. Prof. Russell, in his 
book on German Higher Education, calls „ . . , 

b . . . Critical 

attention to the fact that, since the rise of spirit in 

modern biological science, the critical spirit universities - 
has entered the schools of theology. Young men 
have been leaving the universities for years with 
these ideas in their minds, and the definite amount 
of religious knowledge, which was once supposed to 
be essential to every man's education, has been 
steadily growing less. Not a third as much is 
required to-day as was insisted on thirty years ago. 
The teachers are not so well grounded in their 
beliefs, while the feeling of uncertainty in the teacher 
begets uncertain results in the classroom. Pupils 
consequently take less interest in the subject ; many 
of them say openly that the teacher is obliged to 
teach them what he himself does not believe. Prof. 
Russell also makes the following citation from the 
Kreuzzeitung of November 25, 1894: " As matters 
stand at present, we have a double-entry system of 
spiritual bookkeeping. For the masses, so far as 
they attend the elementary schools, and theoretically 
for pupils of secondary schools as well, we have 
instruction in religion on the lines of positive Chris- 
tianity, in the name and by the authority of the state. 
In the universities, on the contrary, where the young 
men are being educated who will in time succeed to 
the leadership in Church and state, something 
entirely different is put forward in the name of 
science. Doctrines are preached which stand in 
sharpest contradiction to those given to the people. 
This is excused on the ground that religion is for the 



60 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

people, and for them it is good enough as it is. 
Science, however, occupies another field and seeks 
a different patronage. The two do not come in 
contact. " 

The clergy are also dissatisfied with the results, 
which they would better by giving more time to 
What reform religion. This, however, is opposed by 
is possible. tf\e school men, who say that it is not more 
religion, but a better quality that is needed. They 
say that some text-books give as many as three hun- 
dred and fifty different scriptural texts to be learned 
by heart. It is no wonder that • ' the letter kills the 
spirit. ' ' The school men also complain that their 
scholars know the history of the Jews better than the 
history of the Germans. The remedy, they say, is 
not more formal study, for pupils might spend all 
their time on religion, memorizing the entire Bible, 
yet come out irreligious. Better no Catechism at all 
than so many tears in learning it. ' ' 

Prof. Russell also cites the opinion of Prof. 
Kirchner of Berlin, who speaks for the majority of his 
colleagues when he says : "If the religious feeling 
is not revered, awakened, and fostered in the home, 

the school can do very little. As a rule, 
ne'r'so^on. the yearning toward God in a child's soul 

is very slight. A surfeit of religious doc- 
trines, maxims, hymns, forms, ceremonies, prayers, 
as experience proves, often produces a result pre- 
cisely opposite to the one intended. Not the school, 
but the Church has the largest share in fostering the 
increase of piety. Least of all should the school be 
pressed into the service of a rigid orthodoxy; it 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 61 

should not forget that the educational point of view 
must be its standard. Lessons in religion ought not 
to be hours dedicated to devotion, but to instruction 
given in a grave, cheerful manner. The school must 
'be content to establish in its pupils genuine religious 
feeling and sound morality. The means of doing so 
is on the one hand instruction, and on the other the 
teacher's example. Hypercritical sanctimoniousness, 
external attendance to Church forms, nay, even 
polemics against those who hold a different faith, 
leave no good result. In the choice and treatment 
of subjects, the standard must be genuine religious 
stimulation rather than dead knowledge, scholastic 
erudition, or barren forms." 

The ministry have now accepted this idea, for the 
new curricula now lay especial stress upon the subject 
of instruction. " The religious instruction is to be 
so imparted that emphasis shall be laid upon the 
living acceptation and the inward appropriation of 
the facts of salvation and the Christian duties, and 
especial attention be given to the apologetic and 
ethical side. Along with considerable diminution in 
the amount taught, especially by cutting out the his- 
tory of the Church and dogma leading to the New Q. erman 
taking sides in religious controversies, the curricula. 
instruction, so far as it is based on history, is to be 
limited to the occurrences of enduring significance for 
the ecclesiastical and religious life. ' ' Prof. Russell 
concludes his account by saying: " I rarely found a 
schoolboy whose judgment I considered of value in 
other matters, who was not deeply impressed with 
the worth of his religious training. There is much 



62 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

doubt, much senseless criticism abroad in the land, 
but its sources are not to be sought in the schools. 
On the contrary, the religion of Protestant Germany, 
as it is presented in the schools, is one of the most 
powerful forces for the making of unity in German 
life." 

We have now before us in briefest outline an 
account of the religious instruction of the three 
The United foreign countries assigned for consideration. 
States. These facts will form a basis for an exami- 

nation of our own religious instruction of the young 
as compared with that of other countries. 

The leading purposes to be attained by such in- 
struction may perhaps be grouped under three heads. 
First, the development of intelligence in 
purpose of religious matters; second, the inculcation 
instruction. of a christian spirit, or permanent attitude 
of mind; and third, the cultivation of habits of 
Christian conduct. When we compare religious 
teaching in our own country with that of Germany 
and England, with respect to the first head we find 
that their system is immeasurably superior to our 
own. In the first place, in both countries there is 
more or less systematic preparation of teachers for 
this class of work. In Germany, teachers are per- 
haps more carefully prepared for imparting religious 
Am rica information, than in any of the secular 
compared branches. The same thing is true to a 
nrope, somew h a t i ess extent in Great Britain. In 
the next place, they have a regular graded course of 
instruction adapted to the mental powers of the 
children, the whole course forming a consecutive 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 63 

and more or less complete survey of the whole field. 
Then, they devote as much time to this subject as to 
almost any branch of secular learning. 

Turning to our own country we find religious in- 
struction entirely excluded from the Day-schools, 
consequently narrowed down to thirty or 
forty minutes of actual teaching per week. American 
We find the work in charge of anybody SjJJ^ 
and everybody who is willing to undertake 
it. The classes are taught by people of all possible 
grades of intelligence and of biblical knowledge. 
And finally, we find but slight attempt at adapting 
the subject-matter of instruction to the intellectual 
capacity of the children, so that it is quite possible 
for children to attend Sunday-school from the very 
earliest years until adult life without acquiring very 
much fundamental knowledge of the Scriptures. 
Instead, therefore, of a graded course of instruction, 
with adequate time for presentation by a trained 
body of teachers, we have heterogeneous selections, 
presented in the main by untrained teachers, and for 
but very brief periods once a week. In addition to 
all this, our system is woefully lacking, in that it fails 
to reach at all a large part of the children. In 
Germany and England practically all of the children 
receive this thorough-going instruction, but with us 
only a part of them receive it for extremely brief 
periods per week, and for only such portion of their 
lives as their inclination, or the inclination and cir- 
cumstances of the parents, determine. Therefore, 
from the standpoint of the development of religious 
intelligence, the American system must be pro- 



64 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

nounced the most fragmentary, partial, inefficient, 
haphazard system in the world. 

When we come to the second great purpose to 
be attained by religious instruction, namely, the 
America inculcation of a Christian spirit, we have 
better for perhaps not so much cause for regret. I 

Christian ,.,..,, . r ■ 

spirit. think it is the almost uniform testimony of 

observers that the Christian attitude of mind is not 
always to be measured by the amount of religious 
knowledge a people may possess. There is such a 
thing as formalism in religion, so that it is quite 
possible for a people to possess a high degree of 
intelligence in such matters with a low degree of 
active Christian spirit. It is quite possible for the 
religion to remain a thing apart from actual life. 
The extent to which the mental attitude toward God 
finds its counterpart in the mental attitude toward 
one's fellow-men does not depend primarily on 
the amount of religious knowledge one has. It 
depends upon the quickening power of God within 
the soul, upon breadth of sympathy, upon the 
development of the social instincts, upon the inculca- 
tion of human interests in the heart. Primitive his- 
tory gives us many illustrations of races who pray 
to their gods and prey upon their fellow-men. My 
own observation leads me to think that the influence 
of religious teaching in America is more potent in 
arousing this human sympathy, this Christian attitude 
of mind in the community and in the state, than is 
the case in any of the countries with which we are 
contrasting our own. We are accustomed to think 
that religion is a life, rather than a doctrine or a body 



ENGLAND, PRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 65 

of knowledge, and it can be a life only to the extent 
to which the Christian spirit is inculcated in the 
youth. 

And finally, with respect to cultivation of the 
habits of Christian conduct, I think we need not be 
ashamed of the results in this country, as 
compared with those in England, France, Christian 
or Germany, especially if we take into con- C0IldTlCt • 
sideration the extremely limited agencies that we 
have for directly influencing the conduct of the 
young. 

As to possible improvements that suggest them- 
selves from this comparative study, though it is easy 
to see what were good to be done, it is extremely 
difficult to see how it can be done. There T 

• Improve- 

are, however, a few points that 1 will raise mentssug- 
for your consideration. The first is the s estedi 
query whether it is not practicable in our American 
Sunday-schools to provide a better and more child- 
like presentation of religious knowledge in the earlier 
classes of the Sunday-school. The Day-schools 
have long since found out that the success of their 
instruction depends in large measure upon the selec- 
tion of the subject-matter and the methods of its 
presentation in accordance with the psycho- 
logical laws of the child's interest and Better 

... . P e dagogy 

growth. While it is of course possible to needed, 
present in a way almost any portion of the 
Bible to a class of young children, whether from the 
Old Testament or the New, from the Gospels, the 
Epistles, from the miracles in the Old Testament or 
the parables in the New, from chronology or revela- 



66 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

tion, yet it is evident, to one who looks at the subject 
from the standpoint of the child's capacities and 
interests, that much of this matter is introduced at 
great expense, whether we consider the powers of 
acquisition or the spiritual value of that which is 
acquired. Would it not be more profitable to confine 
the earlier work to the Old Testament stories, such 
as those of Joseph, Jacob, Abraham, and Daniel; to 
Suggested such histories, as that of Samuel ; and to 
changes. simple narratives of the life of Christ ? 
These matters are of eternal interest to the child and 
form a basis for a mastery of scriptural knowledge. 
Along with such instruction could appropriately go 
the memorizing of the Ten Commandments, of suit- 
able proverbs, and of portions of Scripture of deep 
religious and moral import, expressed in the trans- 
parent language of the Scriptures. 

In the earlier years of such instruction, it ought 
to be assumed that every child is a child of God ; 
that by virtue of this fact he belongs in the Christian 
family, and that it would be a disaster if, for any 
reason, he should be considered as excluded from it. 
The Sunday-school should be a place for strengthen- 
ing him, especially in his mental attitude toward his 
playmates and others with whom he comes in con- 
tact. 

As the period of adolescence approaches, every 
effort of the religious teachers of the child should be 
Crucial devoted toward fixing in his mind a per- 

periodof manent Christian attitude toward every- 
thing in the world. The study of primitive 
races and of genetic psychology show that this is 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 67 

one of the crucial periods in the life of every indi- 
vidual. Physically, the whole body and nervous 
organism of the child is in its most plastic and most 
rapidly growing state. Strong impressions made at 
this period are likely to have a lasting effect. It is 
at this time that we find the birth of the social in- 
terests. The altruistic feelings begin to arise, a new 
consciousness of selfhood, and its importance in the 
world dawn upon the child. We find that, in primi- 
tive races, this is the period for solemn initiation into 
the deeper life of the tribe. Boys are often put 
through extremely trying physical ordeals; a loop 
of flesh, for instance, in the back may be pierced by 
a thong and tied to a revolving pole placed hori- 
zontally, and the young man be expected to tear 
himself loose. It was at the completion of his 
fourteenth year that the Roman boy assumed the 
toga virilis. It has long been the custom of the 
Roman Catholic and the Lutheran Churches to con- 
firm both boys and girls at this period. Especial 
pains is taken at this time to impress upon them the 
importance and seriousness, the sanctity and neces- 
sity of a religious life. It is said that children are 
often separated from the rest of the family, given 
long periods of meditation in which they are admo- 
nished to think upon their eternal salvation, of death, 
the grave, the judgment. They are led to feel and 
express contrition for sinful conduct and feelings. 
Then, when all these ordeals are safely passed, 
absolution is granted, when everything becomes full 
of light and joy and happiness; the children don 
new garments, made especially for this occasion, 



6$ RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

march in procession and formally enter upon their 
Church-membership. These things have a deep 
import for the American Protestant Sunday-school. 
Children ought not to be allowed to drift on and on, 
with the general assumption that . they are lost and 
the vague hope that some time they will be redeemed ; 
but direct conscious effort should be made to initiate 
them into a distinctively religious life. The wisdom 
of such a process is not founded upon individual 
opinion, but finds its deep foundation in the history 
• and practices of the race, in the psychical nature of 
the adolescent mind and body. 

What should be the quality of the religious in- 
fluences brought to bear upon the child when he has 
passed this crucial period ? Here I am inclined to 
„ think is a matter worthy of our deepest 

Proper in- J r 

flnences after consideration. The history of Protestant 
a o escence. re \[g[ on sri ows that from the earliest times 
much emphasis has been laid upon purely individual, 
subjective states of mind. And this original tendency 
was vastly accentuated by religious observances, 
recommended and inculcated by Whitefield and 
Wesley. They insisted upon a positive and vigorous 
subjective experience, accompanied by equally vigor- 
ous and objective utterance as a necessary condition 
of salvation. In the older times, if a man had been 
asked, " What is your assurance of salvation ? " he 
might perhaps have answered, " The welfare of my 
nation, my community, my family, myself. Accord- 
ing to our thrift, our property, our health, our 
physical comfort, our freedom from the pains of war, 
or the desolation caused by natural forces, — in these 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 69 

things I have a warrant for believing that I stand 
within the favour of the Lord." Those who read 
the Book of Job appreciate what this test of divine 
favour means. With Whitefield and Wesley, how- 
ever, a new test of divine favour is introduced. Not 
my outward condition, but my inward state is the 
criterion of my eternal welfare. If I have had the 
necessary mental experience, if my feelings have 
passed through a certain crisis, if I have expressed 
in public my contrition and my joy, then am I certain 
of my salvation, then can I "read my title clear to 
mansions in the sky. ' ' And since that time, Protes- 
tant denominations have been disposed to emphasize 
the necessity of these subjective states, so that the 
religious teaching, and the assumptions underlying the 
teaching and furnishing the basis of its spirit, have 
been the necessity of constant participation in these 
psychical states, so that we find the emphasis laid 
upon such things as rest and joy and inward peace ; 
upon temptations and prayers ; upon trials and resig- 
nation to them ; upon trust ; a sense of sin, of atone- 
ment, of love of God and hope of Heaven, of a desire 
for strength against the ills of life. We find a 
disposition to constant introspection, to a self- testing, 
to see if we have the feelings, necessary to a public 
analysis of how we feel or should feel. Now all of 
this, or most of it, it seems to me, is not natural to the 
heart and mind of youth. What yearning has the 
active, restless mind of a boy for rest and inward 
peace ; what experience has he of the trials of life or 
resignation to them ; how long can he seriously think 
of death and the grave and the judgment ; how can 



70 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

he be expected to have an intense love of God ; how 
can a lad who never fears a physical hurt seriously 
dwell upon his hope of Heaven ? How can he have 
an intense longing for fortitude against a host of ills 
which he never experienced ; how, in short, can a 
mind which is by nature intensely objective, con- 
crete, synthetic, ever cultivate a deep introspective 
spirit; how can he be expected to analyze his feel- 
ings, and especially to analyze the feelings which he 
never has or which he can have only when he is 
abnormally trained ? Such ideas do not belong to 
youth; they are forced and unnatural. I confess 
that I sometimes look on with little less than wonder 
when I see a young collegian of sixteen to eighteen 
conducting a prayer-meeting, exhorting his fellows 
to these subjective experiences, with all the vigour 
that a college boy would work up an enthusiasm for 
an athletic contest. Can one rationally expect a 
youth under twenty to enjoy a prayer-meeting ? 
What has he to pray for in public ? If he says his 
prayers when he goes to bed, he is doing as much 
as can be expected of a youth. I do not know what 
the statistics may be as to the personnel of the 
teachers in our Sunday-schools, but I suspect that 
most of them are women, and it may be that this fact 
is partially responsible for the attempt to inculcate 
the states of mind, which are at best those of maturity, 
if not those that are more common in women than 
in men. 

There was in England a special reason why there 
should be a reaction against Puritanism in favour of a 
more intense subjective religious life among the 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 7 1 

people. As Prof. Patten shows in his " Development 
of English Thought," the Puritans had 

11 i-iii English re- 

ansen largely to suppress the vice that had action favours 
become so common in connection with rural subjective 

religious life i 

and social pleasures of the English people. 
These customs had arisen out of their earlier, more 
primitive clannish life, their outdoor festivals, their 
May-pole dances, and their numerous social gather- 
ings which had degenerated so that they became 
scenes of debauchery and had to be suppressed. The 
Puritans succeeded in driving them out of existence ; 
they made the home the sole seat of social pleasures, 
and in this way deprived the people of a means of 
social expression, to which they had for ages been 
accustomed. There was naturally, therefore, a great 
suppressed longing for the manifestation of this old 
racial feeling, so that when Whitefield and Wesley 
devised a system of religious exercises which would 
allow the people to come together again, and when 
moreover they insisted upon a set of psychical ex- 
periences which gave vent to these old disused social 
feelings, there was an immediate and wide-spread 
response to the new opportunity. If the people 
could not go to May-pole dances and outdoor festi- 
vals, they could at least go to class-meetings and 
camp-meetings; they could meet together again in 
the Church and express in new ways their old social 
feelings. 

It is not to be wondered at either that in the more 
primitive stages of our development in this country 
those ideas should be warmly welcomed by the people. 
A rural or pioneer community has but small oppor- 



72 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

tunity for indulging their social natures ; the young 
„ , . men work, week in and week out, alone 

Early atti- . 

tudeof on the farm, seeing almost nobody, having 

America. no soc j a j functions to perform, living an 
isolated life. Under such conditions there would 
be a natural receptivity to a set of religious exercises 
which should lend a dramatic social interest to life, 
as was the case in the ever-recurring religious 
revivals. There, on the one hand, the young man, 
whose social nature had been starved for the 
remainder of the year, found an opportunity to look 
on at an exceedingly dramatic performance. He 
beheld his neighbours, his friends, and acquaintances 
at the mourner's bench, alternately groaning with 
despair and shouting with victory; he beheld the 
preacher in an ecstasy of divine rage or joy, the band 
of singers shouting out their songs of praise ; and at 
the same time he felt that dread possibility that he 
himself might at any moment be transformed from a 
spectator to an actor in the drama. The point I am 
making is that the emphasis upon these psychical 
experiences, their public expression and a later 
rehearsal of these initial experiences, was based upon 
a real need of society first in England as a whole, 
and later in the primitive, non-social condition of the 
American people. 

While, on the one hand, I should acknowledge at 
once that there was an historic justification for insist- 
ing upon such religious experiences, I do, on the 
other hand, claim that the need for them has largely 
passed away, and that a new spiritual attitude should 
be maintained in all our religious work. While I 






ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 73 

do think that every youth, in the early period of 
adolescence, should pass through a some- tf ee( if ora 
what analogous experience in his religious new view. 
feeling, so that his attitude toward Christian conduct 
may be permanently right, yet I think the emphasis 
from this time on ought to be laid, not upon subjective 
experience, not upon introspective analysis, not upon 
the straining after feelings which are unnatural to 
youth, but upon a positive, objective, and more active 
expression of religious life, which finds its manifesta- 
tion in actual work in the community. The plant 
of Christian character ought to thrive and grow in 
the human soul; but in some sense I think it ought 
to grow just as the intellect grows, — not by pulling 
it up by the roots to see how fast it is growing or 
how much it has grown, — but by exercise upon those 
things that continue its unconscious development. 
We push a boy on in his arithmetic and encourage him 
to try hard examples ; we rejoice with him when he 
masters them ; we try to awaken his eager interest 
in science or literature or language, assured that 
while he is doing these things he is growing in in- 
tellectual strength. We never think, however, of 
trying to make him self-conscious, of trying to make 
him examine his own mind to see how far he has 
gone ; that matter takes care of itself. And so largely 
in the life of feeling, we want him to feel correctly 
about a thousand things, but we never ask him to 
feel that he feels. So in the religious growth. I 
cannot believe that this constant importunity to turn 
the mind in upon itself, in order that it may be con- 
scious of its own processes, of its own states, is any 



74 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN 

more wise or needful for actual growth than would 
a similar process be in the intellectual field. 

That the problem is a difficult one under existing 
conditions, I should be the first to grant. Religion 
„ , . itself in England and America has ceased 

Emphasize ° 

man's reia- to be largely subjective. Emphasis is no 
tiontoms i on cr-er laid upon the saving power of doc- 

fellow-men. *=> r fc> r 

trines or beliefs, the individualistic attitude, 
whereby a man's chief concern is to save his soul in 
another world, is no longer insisted upon; but the 
attitude of a man in society, his social interests and 
duties, the welfare of the country, the protection of 
the youth from contaminating influences of men, who 
would destroy that they themselves may be enriched, 
pure politics, social activity, reciprocity, solidarity 
of the community in the things that make for 
righteousness, for well-being, good conduct, — these 
are the things that are emphasized in the pulpit, 
these are the things it seems to me that should be 
emphasized in the Sunday-schools. If the introspec- 
tive analysis of states of feeling has been remanded 
to a secondary position in the Church, there is all the 
more need that it should sink into its proper relations 
in the Sunday-school. Adults may perhaps indulge 
harmlessly in introspection, if they find pleasure in 
so doing, but such a custom is contrary to the whole 
instinct and nature of youth. If the emphasis upon 
psychic experience was a natural outlet for the 
pent-up social feelings of a race, as in England, or 
of primitive communities in pioneer America, so in 
the religious training of youth, if we would attain 
the highest excellence, we must rely not upon the 



ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND AMERICA. 75 

occasional needs arising from locality, or condition 
in life, but upon the permanent needs that grow out 
of the very nature of the youthful mind, should meet 
Here we shall be responding to universal universal 
conditions, not to accidental circumstances, 
for I firmly believe that religious instruction, like 
secular instruction, can reach its highest success only 
when it is in fundamental accord with the nature of 
the mind that is to be educated. 

Finally it may be said that in this country, although 
we have done much, we have still more to do. We 
have first of all, and perhaps hardest of all, i mpr0 ve Sun- 
to secure adequate time for religious train- day-school 

methods. 

ing. Thirty or forty minutes per week are 
not enough to secure the requisite religious intelli- 
gence. Then we must have in some way a better 
trained body of teachers to do the work. We must 
be able to rely not upon occasional consecrated 
effort ; but to consecration we must add preparation. 
Then, again, we must attempt to adjust our instruc- 
tion to the nature of the children's minds and not 
present, indiscriminately to tottering age and vigor- 
ous manhood and budding youth and feeble childhood, 
the same lesson at the same time. We must too, I 
think, take a lesson from modern psychology and 
ancient race experience, and recognise more fully 
than we are doing the supreme importance of bring- 
ing the mind into the line of Christian sympathy and 
Christian conduct at the age of early adolescence. And 
finally we must, as I have said, adapt the spirit of our 
instruction to the spirit of youth. A mighty work 
to do, it may be thought, but mightily worth doing! 



IV. 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS IN- 
STRUCTION. 

By the Very Reverend George Hodges, D.D., Dean of Cam- 
bridge Divinity School. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE IV. 

Content of Religious Instruction determined by its Purpose. 
Compared with Purposes of Public and Private Schools. 
All Religious Instruction in entire Parish has the same end in view. 
The Content of Religious Instruction, (a) Character and (6) Church 
Material. 

(a) Character Material, Catechism and Bible. 

(b) Church Material, Prayer-book and Church History. 

The Distribution of Material found in (I) the Sunday-school, and (II) 

the Congregation. 
The Sunday-school, in Infant School, Main School, and Bible Classes. 
The Congregation, in Confirmation Class, Sunday Services, and 

Mid-week Service. 

1. The Sunday-school. 

A. Infant School. Develop (i) Memory by Creed, Lord's 

Prayer, Decalogue, Hymns ; and (2) Imagination by 
Bible Stories. 

B. The Main School. Teach (1) Catechism, (2) Bible, 

and (3) Prayer-book. (1) Catechism recited and ex- 
plained. (2) Bible, the Historical Books only. (3) 
Prayer-book, by actual use in Services. Special Ser- 
vices, Christmas, Easter, Stereopticon,etc. 

2. The Congregation. 

(1) Sunday-morning Services. Use Systematic Courses of 
Sermons. (2) The Confirmation Class. Full Course 
of Church Doctrine and Practice. (3) The Mid-week 
Services. Definite Bible Study. (4) The Sunday- 
evening Services. Use Lecture System, to interest, 
instruct, and convict. 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUC- 
TION. 

The content of religious instruction is determined 
by the purpose for which the instruction is given and 
by the persons who are to be instructed. 

What is the purpose of religious instruction ? 
What is it for ? We know what the Day-school is 
for: its immediate intention is to train and p^^of 
inform the mind; its ultimate intention, if religious 

., . -n • , 1 i • j instruction. 

it is a rnvate school, is to prepare young 
persons for society ; its ultimate intention, if it is a 
Public school, is to prepare young people for citizen- 
ship. These intentions are by no means realized in 
full by administrators of secular education. The 
1 ' Trustees ' ' and the ' ' Board ' ' are sometimes but 
dimly aware of them. And the school, private and 
public, fails accordingly to render its natural and 
needed service to the community. But this is the 
true ideal, and towards it an encouraging number of 
educators are working. The private school is to 
make boys into gentlemen, and girls into gentle- 
women, well-mannered, appreciative of what is good 
in art and letters, and understanding the relation 
between privilege and responsibility. The public 
school is to make boys into intelligent voters, and 

79 



80 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

girls — presently — into intelligent voters, and thus 
to assist the state by raising the general level of its 
life, cultivating public spirit, making young persons 
acquainted with the history, the present conditions, 
and the possibilities of their own country, common- 
wealth, city, or township, teaching the relation 
between the ballot and the office and the social wel- 
fare of the people. 

What is the purpose of the Sunday-school ? It is 
to do for Christianity and the Church what the 
private and the public schools are meant to do for 
.. ,,, society and the state. It is to make the 

Aim of the J 

Sunday- boys and girls good Christians, sincere 
disciples of Jesus Christ, knowing Him, 
believing in Him, loving Him, and obeying Him, 
showing their discipleship by the gentleness, the 
thoughtfulness, the honesty, the purity, and the 
unselfishness of their lives. And it is to make 
the boys and girls good Churchmen, understanding 
the Church, its history, its principles, its customs, 
its blessings, devoted to the Church, making the 
most of it for the good of their own individual lives, 
using it to help them to do right, and making the 
most of it for the good of the community, using the 
Church for the general establishment of the Kingdom 
of Heaven. This is the purpose of the Sunday-school. 
It is to train Christians and Churchmen. It is to 
build up character in the Church, with the appliances 
of the Church. 

The same is true of all other systematic religious 
instruction in the Parish. It holds in the pulpit as 
well as in the schoolroom. The parish priest will 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 81 

be a teacher as well as a preacher. The difference 
between teaching and preaching is partly 
that preaching may appeal to the emotions, th a e n s s am a e m 
while teaching appeals to the understanding 
only; but chiefly that the preacher tries to bring 
about an immediate result, to lead to conviction, 
resolution, and amendment before the end of the 
hour, while the teacher uses a more patient process, 
takes a longer time and a longer look, endeavours 
to prepare the learner to listen to the sermon, and 
to assist the will gradually by informing the mind. 
But all the teaching, wherever given, will be for the 
purpose of training Christians and Churchmen. That 
is, it will have both an individual and a social inten- 
tion; an individual intention, — to build up Christian 
character; and a social intention, — to make Christian 
character strong, abiding, and serviceable by the aid 
of the Church, by bringing the individual into rela- 
tion with the sacramental influences which make for 
character, and by bringing him also into relation with 
the institutional conditions which will increase his 
efficiency, as the efficiency of the soldier is increased 
by keeping step with the regiment. 

The content of religious instruction as determined 
by its purpose will consist, therefore, of two kinds of 
material: character material and Church 0ontentof 
material. It is neither wise nor desirable religious 
to make a sharp distinction between these 
two. It is perhaps true that in the Middle Ages, 
when the social idea prevailed in the Church as it 
did in the state, people were made Churchmen with- 
out being made Christians; the most frequent and 



82 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

emphatic teaching of the Church had to do with 
attendance upon Sacraments and Services, and with 
the position and power of the ecclesiastical institution. 
It is certainly true that at the present day, in this 
individualistic age, people are often made Christians 
without being made Churchmen ; they have no appre- 
ciation of the privilege of the sacraments, no loyalty 
to the Church as an institution, and little sense of 
social religious responsibility. What we want is 
that they shall be made Christians and Churchmen 
at the same time, as we want a man to be at the 
same time a gentleman and a good citizen. Ac- 
cordingly, what we call character material is Church 
material also, and what we call Church material 
is a contribution to character. The difference is 
not so much in the details as in the general tend- 
ency. 

Where, then, shall we find our character material ? 
What ought one to be taught in order to be a 
Character Christian ? There is excellent authority 
material. f or saying that one ought to be taught the 
Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Command- 
ments, — the Commandments as the moral heritage 
Subject- of the Old Testament; the Prayer as the 
matter. expression of the spirit of the New Testa- 

ment, as illustrating and teaching the Christian 
attitude towards God and towards man; and the 
Creed, as the voice of the mind and heart of the 
Church. These, then, are in immediate relation to 
The Cate- character, because they instruct us How to 
chism. act> fj ow to pray, and How to think. 

They are assembled in the Church Catechism. Let 



THE CONTENT OE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 83 

us, therefore, set down the Church Catechism first 
among our character materials. 

The Catechism, however, is not enough for the 
purposes of instruction. It lacks the power of per- 
sonal example. We need to see men, who m „„, 

r ' The Bible. 

have acted in obedience or in disobedience 

to the Commandments, that we may perceive how 
they fared. We need to see men, who have lived 
the life of prayer, and to hear their words of devo- 
tion. We need to see men, who have thought as the 
Creed thinks, and to see what sort of men they were, 
and how they came to think these thoughts, and 
what they meant. Abstract statements, dogmatic 
pronouncements, ethical precepts, are like a library 
in the dark : the truth is there, but we cannot see to 
read it. A single concrete example is like a match 
which brings light into the darkness and makes 
things plain. Where shall we find such examples ? 
They are scattered through all literature, they are to 
be found — some of them — in the daily paper, and 
they live on our own street ; but they are nowhere so 
clearly seen, with the spiritual meanings so directly 
taught, as in the pages of the Bible. Let us add 
the Bible, then, to our store of character material. 

Taking thus the Catechism and the Bible as our 
text-books for instruction in character, where shall 
we turn for good learning in the matter of church 
the Church ? The Church book is the material. 
Book of Common Prayer. In order to be an intelli- 
gent Churchman one must know that book, whence 
it came, what it is and means, and how it is to be 
so used as to get the best blessing out of it. 



84 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

The Prayer-book, however, like the Catechism 
lacks the illumination of personality. It does not 
The Prayer- ^ ac ^ tms so ser i° us ty as the Catechism, 
took. because it stands in more close and evident 

relation to our own personality. It is our own book, 
and as we use it year by year associations gather 
about it, new meanings appear in it interpreted by 
our own experience, and its words become the words 
of our own hearts. There is a great difference 
between a treatise on prayer, and the very act of 
prayer; a great difference between the Command- 
ments quoted in order from the Book of Exodus and 
the Commandments followed each by the response, 
" Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts 
to keep this law " ; a great difference between the 
explanation and the realization of the Sacraments. 
That is the difference between the Catechism and the 
Prayer-book. But as we added the Bible to the 
Catechism in the material for the upbuilding of 
Christian character, so we need to add Church His- 
tory to the Prayer-book in our material for the 
upbuilding of Christian Churchmanship. The History 
Church of the Church, if we can read it right, will 

History. teach us the origin, the progress, and the 
position of the Church, will make us see how differ- 
ent it is from other associations of Christians, will 
make us appreciate it and be intelligently loyal to 
it; and it will assist us to be good Churchmen by the 
examples of the strong men and devout women, who 
have lived in the Church's spirit and have derived 
strength and devotion from the Church. So that the 
study of Church History is like the study of our own 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 85 

ancestors. It maybe dull enough, and often is: but 
undertaken aright it will give us a natural and sus- 
taining family pride, and will fill our memories with 
the words and deeds of those who from their kinship 
offer us an inspiring example. We are not willing 
to learn without correction the question of the little 
girl who said, " Mamma, whom are we degenerated 
from ? ' ' We would rather be in the mind of the 
man who turned his back on his temptations, and 
from being a common tramp became a decent citizen, 
because he remembered that one of his progenitors 
had been a commanding officer in the W T ar of Inde- 
pendence. The history of the Church is somewhat 
more difficult to study than the other subjects of 
religious knowledge, because there is no one satisfac- 
tory book which contains it. It is hardly possible 
to make much use of it, for that reason, in the 
Sunday-school. But it ought to be taught, and 
taught with regularity and system, in every parish. 
It cannot be omitted from the content of religious 
instruction. 

Here, then, we have our material : character 
material in the Catechism and in the Bible, Church 
material in the Prayer-book and in Church history. 

The distribution of this material, the order of 
teaching, the use which shall be made of the content 
thus determined for us by the purpose for j)i str ibution 
which the instruction is given, must be of the _ 
decided by considering the persons who are 
to be instructed. They are found in two com- 
panies: in the Sunday-school and in the Congrega- 
tion. The Sunday-school is divided into three 



86 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

sections: the Infant School, the Main School, and 
the Bible Class. The Congregation meets for 
systematic teaching upon three occasions: at the 
Confirmation Class, at the Mid-week Service, and at 
the Sunday-evening Service. 

What shall be taught in the Infant School ? These 
little children cannot read, and they cannot follow 
Infant a l° n §" train of reasoning, but they bring 

School. to their lessons two inestimable qualities, 

which many of them will never have again in a like 
degree: one is memory, the other is imagination. 

We will make use, then, of their memory. We 
will try to store it with that which is worth remem- 
__ , bering. Here, however, we are at once 

Thepeda- , , 

gogicsof confronted with the question which the 
memorizing, p ec j a g g ues have debated and have for the 
most part decided: Should children be taught to 
memorize what they do not understand ? The peda- 
gogues say, ''No." The catechetical method, so 
far as it consists in fixed questions and invariable 
answers, has no respectable position now, except in 
Sunday-school. It must be confessed that the 
memorizing of the Church Catechism, as that exer- 
cise has sometimes been conducted, is not to edifica- 
tion. It has made the children hate the Catechism ; 
and its results have been generally discouraging. 
One of the classic instances is ' ' My duty towards 
my neighbour" as it was written out by a small 
child after it had been taught in an English Sunday- 
school : 

"My dooty tords my nabers to love him as 
myself, and to do to all men as I woud they shall 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 87 

do and to me, to love, onner and suke my father 
and mother and bay the Queen and all that are pet 
in a forty under her, to smit myself to all 

, . , , Illustration 

my goones teachers spartial pastures and f wrong 
masters, who oughten myself lordly and memoriter 

work. 

every to all my betters, to hut nobody 
by would nor deed, to be trew and jest in all my 
dealins, to beer no malis nor atred in your arts, to 
kep my ands from pecking and steel my turn from 
evil speak and lawing and slanders, not to civit and 
desar other mans good, but to learn labor trewly 
to get my own leaving and to do my duty in that 
state if life and to each it hes please God to call 
men." 

Nevertheless, it is both profitable and necessary 
that the memory should sometimes outrun the perfect 
understanding. When the memory gets altogether 
out of sight of the understanding, things are amiss 
indeed. But that need not happen. It is true of 
every one of us that there are sentences in 

1 r 1 Memory may 

our memory — words 01 prayer and praise, outran fall 
verses of high poetry, utterances of saints understand- 
and wise men — which our understanding 
has not even yet fully overtaken. We do not even 
yet know what they mean. But the day will come 
when our experience shall teach us, and in that 
day the remembered word shall be an interpreter 
and a counsellor. We want to put such words into 
the memories even of little children. They cannot 
understand the Creed, nor the Ten Commandments, 
nor even the Lord's Prayer; but they can under- 
stand something about them. And that is all that 



88 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

can be said of us. Let us then bring those great 
words into the Infant School, teach them with such 
iteration that the children can never forget them, 
and tell them what they mean just so far as we can 
make it plain and they can see it. 

It is a good plan to make the Creed, the Lord's 
Prayer, and the Ten Commandments a part of the 
regular opening service of the Infant School, and to 
follow the recitation by a lesson every Sunday in 
some simple text-book which takes them up in order, 
v/ord by word. To these stores for the memory, 
may well be added words of hymns, and fitting texts 
of Scripture ; the Scripture texts being preferably 
taught alphabetically — " A soft answer turneth away 
wrath"; " Be merciful," " Be patient. " 

The imagination of the child will be appealed to 
in the instruction given in the Bible. The best way 
T . . to teach the Bible in the Infant School is 

Imagination 

in the Infant to tell Bible stories. I would begin with 
Adam and go straight through to the last 
chapter of the Revelation of St. John. It is neces- 
sary that this be done systematically and graphically: 
systematically, in that the order of the stories be laid 
out at the beginning of the year, and followed Sunday 
after Sunday; graphically, in that the stories be 
brought as close as possible to contemporary life, 
and the heroes and heroines be made real. The 
content of this instruction will need re-translation to 
adapt it to the understanding of small children. 
Pharoah in his dream will see cows instead of 
" kine," and the Prodigal Son will dispute his dinner 
with pigs instead of "swine." The men will obey 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 89 

the command which Michael Angelo gave to 
Donatello's St. George; they will "march." The 
battle of the lamps and trumpets, for example ; the 
children will stand as breathless spectators of that 
splendid fight. They will look out through the dark, 
and see the dim outlines of the tents of the Midian- 
ites. They will watch the army of Gideon, as they 
hide behind the trees to light their lanterns. They 
will see them creeping silently over towards the 
sleeping camp, every man a sharp sword in his belt, 
in his left hand a lantern hidden in a pitcher, in his 
right a trumpet. Suddenly the word is given, crash 
go three hundred stout trumpets against three hundred 
breaking pitchers, and the lights shine out, and the 
trumpets make a noise like that of forty nights- 
before-the-" Fourth " in one, and every brave 
Israelite shouts with all his might, " The sword of the 
Lord and of Gideon! " And then the wild panic, 
and the flight, with Gideon hot after them. 

Let us then set down as the content of religious 
instruction in the Infant School, the Creed, the 
Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, with 
the words of hymns and Scripture texts storing the 
memory; and stories from the Bible, stirring the 
imagination. 

In the Main School, instruction will naturally be 
given in the Catechism, the Bible, and the Th e Main 
Prayer-book. School. 

It is well, in the Main School as in the Infant 
School, to make the catechetical instruction a part 
of the Opening Service. It may take the place of 
that which in liturgical language we call the 



90 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

" lesson." It does not seem advisable — the time 
being so brief — to read at the service the portion of 
Scripture which is presently to be studied. That 
has a space of its own. Take a Catechism lesson 
instead. There are two purposes which this lesson 
is to attain : it is meant to impress the exact words 
of the entire Catechism upon the minds of the 
children, and it is intended also to bring as much as 
possible of its meaning into their hearts. The 
Catechism falls naturally into five divisions: the 
Covenant, the Creed, the Commandments, the Lord's 
Prayer, and the Sacraments. If one of these after 
another is recited by the school in concert every 
Sunday, that will take the scholars through the 
Catechism ten times a year; and without seriously 
wearying them. Let this recitation be followed by 
a five-minute explanation (never longer) of a single 
phrase, in order, each Sunday a fiftieth part of the 
whole. Thus the Catechism will be gone over with 
interpretation once in the course of a year. 

As for the Bible, the historical books lend them- 
selves most naturally to the purposes of Main School 
instruction. They are interesting, and abundantly 
Bible use, Ms- su ggestive, and they teach truth in the most 
torical books convincing way, by example. It is neces- 
on y, ere. sarV) however, to bring all the Bible books, 
at least by allusion, into the content of instruction, 
even in the Main School. The children ought to 
be taught not only the content, but the contents of 
Holy Scripture; I mean the names of all the books 
in their succession, so that they may be able to find 
their way about among them. Whatever the system 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 91 

of lessons, the Bible ought to be so taught, that every 
scholar shall know what Joseph did in Egypt, and 
Joshua in Canaan, what Amos wrote about in his 
prophecy, and St. Paul in his epistle to the Galatians, 
and the great successive words and deeds of the 
Ministry of Christ. 

This may be attained by taking for one year the 
history from Genesis to Ruth — the era of the origin 
and establishment of the Old Testament people ; and 
for the next year the history from I. Samuel to 
Esther — the era of the Old Testament Kingdom, 
united, divided, destroyed, and restored; and for 
the third year one of the Gospels ; and for the fourth 
the Acts of the Apostles ; with a fifth year given to 
the Books of the Bible, in their order, having the 
scholars read a brief characteristic passage of each 
book and giving them a brief analysis of each book, 
which will sufficiently answer the question, What is 
it about ? 

Taking thus the historical books for the chief con- 
tent of instruction in the Main School, the remainder 
of the Bible — poetry, prophecy, and epistles — may 
be assigned to the Bible Class, to be Leave 
studied a book at a time carefully and Poetry, 
thoroughly. The Main School lessons Epistles to 
may be adjusted to some one of the many Bible Classes, 
excellent systems, whose rival attractions perplex 
the rector and the teacher; or they may be arranged, 
as I have just suggested, by the rector himself, fitting 
them to his own teachers and his own school. The 
Bible Class lessons, almost of necessity, will be 
chosen for the individual class. While there is an 



92 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

ideal advantage in having the entire body of Bible 
students intent upon the same lesson, and studying 
it, old and young together, around the evening lamp 
on Saturday night, this ideal is now so rarely realized 
that it is perhaps better to frankly abandon it, arid 
minister to the harmless, natural pride of young 
persons of sixteen years of age and over by giving 
them lessons which are quite different from those 
studied by the youngsters. Let us take, for example, 
for six months the Book of Psalms ; and for the next 
six months, the Epistles to the Corinthians ; let us 
spend a year in the Book of Daniel and the 
Revelation of St. John ; let us study Isaiah for 
twelve months ; and the minor prophets, one each 
month. Once in four or five years, the Bible 
Classmay profitably be turned into a Prayer-book 
Class, taking the book from the title-page to the 
Articles. 

In the Main School, the Prayer-book is best 
taught, in my judgment, by actual use of it in the 
Prayer-book Service. It is intended partly for purposes 
by actual of worship, and partly for purposes of in- 
struction. It gives us helpful forms of 
praise and petition, and it appoints us Holy Seasons 
whereby certain great truths, on which our praises 
and petitions rest, are called to our remembrance. 
What we want is that these forms and seasons shall 
become a part of the lives of the children. The 
forms may be taught by the ordinary services of 
the school, and the seasons by certain special 
services, designed to emphasize and illustrate 
them. 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 93 

The ordinary Service of the Sunday-school becomes 
not only an act of worship but a means of profitable 
instruction partly by the use of the Book of The School 
Common Prayer in that Service, allowing Service. 
no service-card or leaflet to take its place ; and partly 
by so arranging the Service that in the following of 
it every scholar shall learn to "find the places." 
This may be accomplished by the use of some such 
service as this : 

1 . Hymn or hymns. 

2. The Lord's Prayer, and versicles. 

3. One psalm, or a part of a psalm, from the 

psalter for the day. 

4. The lesson, — from the Catechism. 

5. A canticle, sometimes from Morning Prayer, 

sometimes from Evening Prayer. 

6. The Creed, and versicles. 

7. The collect for the day, and prayer. 

8. Hymn. 

This is not so much of a Service as to appear to 
make the Sunday-school a substitute for the Church. 
At the same time, it is enough to give the children 
that familiarity with the book, which will prepare 
them to take an intelligent and devout part in the 
Church service. 

It is helpful, also, as a matter of instruction and 
reminder, to have the Sacrament of Baptism adminis- 
tered in the presence of the school, several times a 
year, and to have the children follow the service in 
their books. 

Special Services marking the seasons of Christmas 
and Easter are held in all Sunday-schools ; but the 



94 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

number of days thus brought happily to the attention 
Special °f tne children may easily be extended. 

Services. gy the use of the stereopticon, picture 
services may be held on the evenings of Epiphany, 
Good Friday, and Ascension Day. The service 
may begin with hymns' and prayers, and then the 
appropriate pictures may follow as the Gospel story 
is re-told. Thus on the evening of the Epiphany, 
the pictures may begin with the Annunciation and 
go on to our Lord's visit to the Temple, when He was 
twelve years old. On the evening of Good Friday, 
the pictures may begin with the Triumphal Entry 
into Jerusalem and proceed through all the days of 
the Holy Week to Easter. On the evening of 
Ascension Day, the pictures may illustrate the 
miracles and parables and other events of our Lord's 
Ministry. Such a service is not a difficult nor an 
expensive matter. The rent of fifty pictures with a 
lantern and screen and the attendance of a man to 
operate them will not cost more than fifteen dollars. 
The pictures are the most beautiful in the world, — 
the great paintings which men whom God has inspired 
have made for the Church, the treasures of galleries 
and cathedrals, the masterpieces of Raphael and 
Angelo and Da Vinci ; here they are assembled in 
any parish church for the delight and instruction of 
little children. The impressive effect of such services 
is very great; the children recognise and understand 
and appreciate and remember. The great Christian 
Days shine with a new light. 

The content of religious instruction in the Parish 
will be determined by the Sunday-school ; it will also 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 95 

be determined by the Congregation. In every 
parish, the Sunday-school is systematically i nstruction 
instructed. The work may not be done of the Con- 
very wisely nor very well, but in some gresa lon ' 
manner it is done, and what I have been saying has 
travelled over roads familiar to you all. It is not 
enough, however, to instruct the Sunday-school, 
there is imperative need of the systematic instruction 
of the Congregation. 

The Congregation is of course instructed — it is 
to be hoped — in every parish every Sunday, in the 
sermon. But the most admiring parishioner can 
hardly say, in many parishes, that the instruction 
thus given is systematic. Systematic instruction 
implies a reasonable and progressive and visible 
purpose, adding precept to precept, like Generally 
the building of a house, for the accomplish- tematic. 
ment of a certain action or conviction or the acquire- 
ment of a certain knowledge. It means that the ser- 
mon which is preached on Sunday has a logical as 
well as a chronological relation to the sermon which 
was preached a week ago. And that is a condition 
which is not realized of a Sunday morning in two 
pulpits out of fifty in all Christendom. On the Sun- 
day before last, the preacher talked about loaves and 
fishes ; last Sunday, his theme was the Day of Judg- 
ment; and here he comes with a sermon on the 
doctrine of Inspiration. This is a rather haphazard 
fashion of dealing with so serious a matter as religion, 
and its results are plainly seen in an imperfectly in- 
structed laity. 

The people need systematic instruction ; but they 



96 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

do not need it any more than the parson needs to 
give it. For his own sake, as well as for their sake, 
preaching ought to be supplemented by teaching. 
For the life of the minister is one of continual dis- 
traction and interruption, whereby actual study is 
made very difficult. To this is added the perplexity, 
which arises from the many-sided character of the 
life which the minister lives. There are twenty 
ways in which he may spend his day: how shall he 
choose ? The result of this interruption and per- 
plexity is that in a good many cases the 
Clergy need minister lets his reading go. He ceases 
systematic to be a student. He knows that there 

teaching. . . 

are great books being written, which trans- 
late the truths of the ages into the language of 
our own time, but he knows nothing about them, 
except what he chances to read in a Review. As 
for the masters of theology and the facts of history, 
he has, as he thinks, no time for them. Happy is 
he, if he continues to read even his Bible to any pur- 
pose. The chances are that he reads more in the 
Bible in the course of the services on Sunday, than 
he read during the whole previous week put together. 
It is inevitable that the ministry of such a pastor 
and preacher should suffer. He cannot preach well 
unless he himself is preached to ; and he must find 
his sermons in books. Under these circumstances, 
the conscientious minister will apply the goad of 
necessity. He will compel himself to read. This 
he will do by improving three natural occasions for 
such compulsion : the Confirmation Class, the Mid- 
week Service, and the Sunday-evening Service. He 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 97 

will decide upon such subjects for these occasions, as 
will make it absolutely necessary for him to study in 
order to speak upon them; and he will make his 
decision so public and irrevocable, by announcement 
from the chancel and in type, that neither indolence 
nor interruption shall be able to effect his escape. 

Under these circumstances, for the good alike of 
minister and people, what shall be the content of 
instruction in the Confirmation Class ? 
The Confirmation Class, it is plain, is ma tion 
meant not merely to prepare young persons Class ' 
for Confirmation, but to make them intelligent citi- 
zens of the Kingdom of Heaven. The intention of 
the instruction, then, will be to set forth for their 
learning the great outlines of Religion : the things 
which one should believe and do in order to be a 
good Christian. This must be done simply and 
briefly; for the hearers are young and the time is 
short. How it may be done best, everybody must 
decide for himself; every minister must make his 
own plan. The essential thing is that there be a 
plan, that it be a large one, which shall make a 
considerable demand upon both teacher and taught, 
and that it be announced and maintained. 

Such a plan, however made, will have a certain 
invariable content. The order and the treatment 
will differ, but the things to be taught will be about 
the same everywhere. Every pastor will 
teach his people who are preparing for Content of 

r^ r - /-> i Confirmation 

Confirmation what Confirmation is, what is lectures. 

implied in the Commandments, what the 

Creed means, what is intended in the Creed by the 



98 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

phrase "the holy Catholic Church," how to pray, 
and how to come aright to the Sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper. Setting down these matters, then, 
in order, and making six lectures out of them, — or 
twelve, if the conditions permit, by subdivision, — 
we have such an exhibit of the content of Confirma- 
tion instruction as this: 

First lecture : 

1. Baptism. 

2. Confirmation. 

Second lecture: 

i . Character. 

2. Commandments. 

Third lecture: 

i. The Creed (general). 
2. The Creed (particular). 

Fourth lecture: 

i. The Church. 
2. The Churchman. 

Fifth lecture: 

1. The Lord's Prayer. 

2. The Prayer-book. 

Sixth lecture: 
; I . The Holy Communion. 

i 2. The Communion Service. 

The Mid-week Service is the young minister's 
experiment station. Here he tries his various 
schemes upon the saints, and finds out whether they 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 99 

will work. The saints will not mind it; they 
come to church in the middle of the week because 
they are good Christians, and the young 
minister's failures will not drive them away, week Ser- 
When, by some happy fortune, the experi- Ylce ' 
ment succeeds, some other persons will be added to 
the little company. And in the mean time, whether 
anybody else gets anything out of it or not, the 
young minister gets much. It is likely that after an 
extended series of experiments, he will settle down 
to a regular instruction in Holy Scripture from which 
he will not lightly depart. He will make the Mid- 
week Service his goad of necessity for the definite 
and genuine study of the Bible. 

He may so arrange the lessons as to go along with 
the Sunday-school, thus attracting the teachers; 
taking the History of the Jewish Church, with 
Stanley; and the Life of our Lord, with Edersheim; 
and the Apostolic Church, with Farrar; and the 
Messages of the Books, with Professor Sanders and 
Professor Kent. Or he may take certain great 
books, and read them to his people, with comment; 
as Isaiah, interpreted by George Adam Smith. Or 
he may take the Biography of the Bible, and draw 
out the lessons taught by the lives of its men and 
women ; or the Geography of the Bible, for the sake 
of making the events and the people more distinct 
and alive against the background. 

It is plain that such a course of study, persevered 
in, will enrich both the preacher and his people. It 
will illuminate the lessons which are read in Church, 
so that the hearer and the reader shall find a message 

LofC. 



loo THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

from God in much which seems at present to mean 
nothing. It will give suggestions for new sermons, 
and give the congregation a new understanding and a 
new interest. It will make the Bible a new book, and 
bless the parish which comes thus into possession of it. 
There remains a third occasion, which the minister 
may employ, if he will, for the shaping of his own 
study and for the systematic instruction of 

The Sunday- J , _, . , _ , 

evening the people. That is the Sunday-evening 
Service. Service. The Sunday-evening Service is 
the parson's perplexity. What shall he do with it ? 
He may do either one of two things : he may preach 
the gospel in the old way, with a text and a written 
sermon ; or he may preach the gospel in a new way, 
without a text, and with a lecture in the place of a 
sermon. If he chooses to abide in the old way, he 
will have a small congregation of exceedingly 
respectable people, most of whom know more about 
the Christian religion than he does ; and his sermon 
will be either an old one or a rather poor new one: 
for it is not in human nature to go on week after 
week writing two good sermons. To write even 
one good one is for most of us a tremendous under- 
taking, and we miss the mark a good many times ; 
but two good ones is out of our reach altogether. 

Suppose that the preacher stops trying to do that. 
Suppose that at his second Sunday Service he gives 

up his paper and his text, and speaks in- 
Systematic formally, following a line of topics which 
plan , he has announced to the congregation. 

His first purpose is interest: he wants 
to get a congregation. His second purpose is in- 



THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION- ioi 

struction: he would teach himself and them. His 
third purpose is conviction: he would bring his 
hearers close to the spirit and power of Jesus Christ. 
Not one of these three purposes can be omitted, but 
they will stand thus in the order of impression. The 
congregation will come, because what the preacher 
says interests them ; they will come, because what is 
said instructs them ; and they will speedily discover 
that the interest is not for its own sake, and the in- 
struction is not for its own sake, but that throughout 
the preacher speaks, no matter what his subject be, 
as a man of God, having for his supreme endeavour 
the bringing of the lives of men into the obedience 
and love of God. 

Suppose that in this spirit there be given every 
year a course of instruction in the History of the 
Church, — a series of six or eight lectures, perhaps in 
Lent, taking era after era, year by year. Thus : 

i. The First Six Centuries. 



The Middle Ages. 

The Reformation on the Continent. 

14. The Reformation in England. A suggested 

5. The Puritan Revolution. course ' 

6. The Evangelical Revival. 
7. The Oxford Movement. 
8. The Church in America. 
It is a history as full of God as the Old Testament, 
hose saints are as high examples as the patriarchs, 
whose preachers are as eloquent as the prophets, and 
in whose mighty movement the arm of the Lord is 
made as plain, as in any era of the ancient people. 
It ought to be made available for doctrine, for 



102 THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness. 

There is no end to the content of religious instruc- 
tion, profitable to the Sunday-evening congregation. 
The preacher may occupy all the chairs of the 
theological school in turn. He may be professor of 
liturgies, of Biblical literature, of Biblical theology, 
of systematic divinity, of ethics. And the congre- 
gation will grow, and the preacher will grow. 

Thus in the Sunday-school and in the Congrega- 
tion, by the Catechism, by the Bible, by the Prayer- 
book, and by the History of the Church, shall be 
attained, God helping us, the end for which all the 
whole content of religious instruction is intended, 
the upbuilding of Christian character, the training of 
Christian Churchmanship. 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND ITS 
COURSE OF STUDY. 

By the Reverend Pascal Harrower Chairman of the Sun- 
day-school Commission, Diocese of New York. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE V. 

The principle underlying the present Course of Lectures. Church- 
school. Sunday-school. 
Education one of the most important subjects. 
The object of the Church-school. 

What the school represents in the history of civilization. 
The approach to the subject on its historical side. 
The child the pivot of society. 
The Jewish estimate of childhood. 
Christ and the child. 

The early Church and its ministry to children. 
The mutual relations of preaching and teaching. 
Trumbull's Lectures. 
Martin Luther. 
Archbishop Dupanloup. 
The ministry of catechizing. 

Pedagogical training the need of the modern Ministry. 
The preparation of a Course of Study not a simple matter. 
Questions involved in it. 

Church- school not exclusively a Bible School. 
Curriculum a problem to be studied by trained educators. 
The Subject-matter, or Lesson Material. 
i. The Church Catechism. 

Errors in teaching-method, not in the matter taught. 

2. The Bible. 

The International Series of Sunday-school Lessons. 

The Bible crowding out the Catechism. 

Defects of this and similar schemes. 

What the Bible is and is not. 

President Hadley on Bible Study. 

Its educational value. 

The Bible in American colleges. 

Recommendations of the U. S. Bureau of Education. 

Moral value of the literary study of the Bible. 

The bearing of these on the Bible in the Church-school. 

The method of Jesus. 

3. Nature-study in the Church -school. 

4. Sacred Geography. 

5. History. 

6. Christian Ethics. 

The contemporary Christ. 
The first contact of youth with the world. 
The responsibility of the Church. 
Conclusion. 

The Church must call to her assistance those who have been 
trained in matters of Education. 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND ITS COURSE 
OF STUDY. 

THE principle underlying this course of lectures is 
that the Sunday-school, or rather let us call it, the 
Church-school, is an educational institution. Its 
problems are educational problems, its work is edu- 
cational, it deals with minds that lie in the educational 
or school period of life. What theories we may 
indulge in as to material and form of lessons, the 
arrangement and details of management, the quali- 
fications and work of teachers, these are subordinate 
to the one fact that the Church-school is a School. 
It is subject to the same laws as govern school work 
elsewhere. As these are or are not clearly appre- 
hended and applied, the school succeeds or fails. 

The question of education is one of the most im- 
portant that can engage our minds. The modern 
system is a very comprehensive one. It 
covers a large number of subjects. Apart 
from the actual and available knowledge it gives to 
fit men for the various duties of their professional and 
business careers, there is another result that must also 
follow from it, before we can call it truly successful, 
and that is the character it produces. Something 
fine and strong in character must be the last test of 

105 



io6 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

education. Coming to the particular question of 
religious education, so far as that is involved in the 
Sunday-school, it is a question of the deepest interest 
whether the methods commonly in use have produced 
the result we have a right to expect. It should fit 
men for the duties of life. It should ground them 
firmly in certain truths, and make these part of their 
very character and common knowledge, before they 
can become a permanent factor in their lives. 

Now the only way by which this can be accom- 
plished is by school training. "There are two 
The Church Churches," to use a phrase of Principal 
and the Salmond's, " the Church of to-day and the 

Church of to-morrow. ' ' For the older 
ones, who are bearing the burdens and doing the work 
of to-day, the Church provides her Sacraments and 
Services, but for the children, who are the Church 
of to-morrow, the school must do the main and im- 
portant work. We are not to overlook the home, 
and the many other sources of influence in the social 
environment of the child. But it still remains that 
education implies careful and regular instruction. 
The school, in whatever form it may have existed 
from age to age, however crude its nature, represents 
the effort to put the child in possession of himself 
and in possession of the world about him. It was 
there that he became part of the race, and imbibed 
the ideas and truths, political or social or religious, 
that made his manhood what it was. When we 
speak, therefore, of the Church-school, we are not 
thinking of a haphazard gathering on Sunday morn- 
ing, to read a few verses from the Bible, and join in 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY- 107 

the somewhat confused, yet sacred, duties of the 
hour. We are really guilty of using a misnomer, 
when we call such a gathering a " school. " It lacks 
definite and intelligent organization, it follows no 
clear method of work, its course of study is restricted 
and lacks both breadth of subject and progressive 
movement of truth, and fits nowhere into the natural 
development of the child. There can be, therefore, 
no more important work undertaken by the Church 
than to meet this question of religious instruction, 
and order it upon the best and surest foundation 
possible. 

I. First, let us approach our subject on its histori- 
cal side. We commonly place the origin of the 
Sunday-school some hundred or more years _. „ , 
back. But in its essential relation to the the Church- 
child, it is in reality as ancient as religion. 
From the beginnings of human life, the child has been 
the .pivot on which history and institutions and 
religion swung. It is important to keep this in mind 
because it determines largely the significance of the 
School in the economy of the Church. If it be 
something irrelevant to the Church, something 
merely annexed to it, a rather questionable and per- 
haps impertinent intrusion upon its life, then we may 
dismiss it, with its disorganized mass of ill-trained and 
misdirected effort, as something that has no claim 
upon our respect. 

On the contrary, no department of modern Church 
work has the authority of a more venerable tradition. 
Without dwelling upon ancient Jewish history, we 
need go no further than to refer to that profound inter- 



108 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL-ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

est in childhood which underlay the whole structure 
Th J " h of Jewish civilization. Coming down to the 
estimate of age of Jesus, we find that the religious in- 
struction of children commanded the most 
serious interest. Every synagogue had attached to 
it one of these schools. Later on, in the various 
provinces, and wherever Jewish colonies were estab- 
lished, schoolmasters were appointed, who should 
take charge of all boys from six or seven years of 
age. These schools were one of the most impressive 
features of their national life. They were regarded 
as fundamental to the very perpetuation of the race. 

We are living in an age, happily, when child-study 
is coming to the front in all systems of teaching. 
But we cannot overlook the fact that the Jewish 
people based their whole structure of life upon the 
child and his teaching. And this work was also 
based upon a love for the child of the deepest and 
most beautiful character. Child-life was holy to 
Jewish thought. When our Lord, speaking of chil- 
dren, said: 4< Their angels do always behold the face 
of My Father which is in Heaven," He was ex- 
pressing the true Jewish estimate of childhood. 

As Christianity passed out on its mission, it carried 
this noble estimate of childhood, enriched with the 
Childhood in P ecunai *ly strong and tender authority of 
the Early the Holy Childhood. There are forces 
stronger than laws. It would have required 
a wrench, more violent than we can easily express, 
for the Christian Church to have broken with this old 
thought of the child. This it is that explains the 
pervading presence of childhood through the New 






THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 109 

Testament. Everywhere we meet it. We are never 
left long without the sound of the children. They 
move ever through the story of the Apostolic Age 
with the benediction of the Christ-Child upon them. 

The early Church, true to this instinct, went at 
once to the childhood of the Empire. She gathered 
them, in every possible way, into her schools. One 
of the charges made by Celsus against Origen was 
that Christians carried on their most powerful and 
insidious propaganda, through the children whom 
they lured into their schools. Origen allowed the 
charge, but claimed that the teachings of Christianity 
were directly favourable to the child's welfare and 
would promote reverence for, and service of, parents. 
The early Church " made the school the connecting 
link between herself and the world. ' ' When the 
Emperor Julian ' 4 determined to take the control of 
education into the hands of the state, ' ' he declared 
that unless he could arrest the movement of the 
Church in the school, the progress and triumph of 
Christianity were inevitable. In his ' ' Yale Lectures 
on the Sunday-school, ' ' to which I am here Trumbull's 
glad to make my deep acknowledgment, TaleLeo- 

*> J r 7 1 • tores on tbe 

Dr. Trumbull has carefully traced the his- Sunday- 
tory and progress of this great educational sc 00 ' 
work, a work which only reveals its larger dignity 
and importance as we come thus into the fuller 
knowledge of its facts. 

We are accustomed to attach special importance 
to the work of preaching in the propagation of the 
Christian faith. But while allowing the fullest recog- 
nition of its value and place in the Church, it remains 



no THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL-ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

true that the woof and web of Christian character and 

faith are wrought out during the school 
and teach- period of life. Ideas cannot become the 
mg " permanent possession of the world, which 

do not first enter through the door of childhood. 
When Luther had brought about the Reformation in 
Germany, he at once saw the necessity of the Church- 
school. " Young children and scholars are the seed 
and source of the Church," was the way he echoed 
the familiar proverbs of the old Rabbis. 

But Luther took St. Paul's position, and claimed 
that aptness to teach was a pre-requisite for the work 

of the ministry. "I would," said he, 
St Ut p e a r ui. nd " that nobod y should be chosen as a 

minister, if he were not before this a school- 
master. ' ' So deeply did he estimate the need of this 
that he followed up his work of preaching with the 
publication of two catechisms which he prepared for 
the instruction of children. 

Let me also call attention to the movement in 
France, within our own century, led by Dupanloup, 

the illustrious Archbishop of Orleans. He 
Dupanloup tells us how France had suffered from the 
catecMsfs! ea decay of faith in the last century, and how, 

in his own diocese, he had found the clergy 
not only indifferent themselves, but also totally in- 
capable of teaching their children. To meet this he 
instituted conferences, and began his great pedagogi- 
cal work of training them in the art of catechizing. 
The hope of France lay in the catechism, the school- 
ing of the children, and he cited with eloquent words 
the example and work of those great catechists of 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY, m 

the Church who had devoted themselves to the per- 
sonal instruction of the young: such men as St. 
Charles Borromeo, who instituted the Confraternity 
of Christian Teaching in Milan, of the illustrious Jean 
Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, who 
in his old age held the catechism for children in the 
Church of St. Paul at Lyon ; of Abbe Fenelon and 
Bossuet, and Borderies, Bishop of Versailles, who 
began his work as a catechist of the Church of the 
Madeleine. 

The significance of these facts is most important. 
In nothing is the Ministry of the Church so poorly 
equipped as for this work of religious in- 
struction. The function of the preacher is Ministry in 
important, but the function of the teacher tne P resent 
is of even deeper importance. The Church 
does not prepare her clergy for this work, and yet in 
theory she makes them primarily responsible for it. 
Yet nothing would so richly enhance the power of 
the Christian pulpit, and deepen the influence of the 
Ministry, as the thorough training in the art of teach- 
ing to which Luther referred, and which the very 
conditions of the present age so imperatively demand. 
Until this has been done, and the Church grasps the 
importance of the pedagogical training of her minis- 
try, we cannot expect her to give her children that 
religious training, which alone can secure her proper 
influence upon the life of the nation. 

II. The preparation of a course of study for the 
Church-school would at first seem to be a very 
simple matter. It depends primarily, of course, upon 
the study-material appropriate to such a school. If 



H2 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

it is first and only a Bible School, then it can admit 

only the Bible into its curriculum. Its 

Questions lessons will be taken from the Bible, and 

involved in ,, , . .,, i 

a curriculum, all things will converge upon that text- 
book. Even in this case, there must be 
exercised the highest possible wisdom to arrange 
and edit the subject-matter of instruction in accord- 
ance with approved educational principles. But the 
Church School is something more than a Bible- 
school. It is a school of Christian knowledge, and 
must gather into its course of study more than the 
content of the Bible. So far as may be, this course 
must give to childhood and youth the largest possi- 
ble knowledge of the principles of religion. What 
religion is, what it has done lor man, what it proposes 
to do, all the naturalness and truth of it, how it fits 
into the young heart of life, how all its wonderful 
experiences lie wrapped up in the soul and mind of 
the child, — this is what a man should learn in the 
school days of his life. 

Now the arrangement of the subjects involved in 

such a curriculum as this is no slight task. It will 

certainly require as careful consideration, 

Curriculum 

a problem as broad and thorough knowledge of the 
for trained child, as are involved in the matter of 

educators. 

secular education. We are not to consider 
such a question already settled by past experience. 
Nothing could more fairly command the attention 
and study of our wisest educators. And it cannot 
be expected that the Church can properly solve this 
question until she has called to her aid those who 
are qualified experts in matters of education. 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 113 

Let me now ask you to consider the subject-matter 
of such a religious education as the Church should 
give her children. We are not now speaking of the 
arrangement of these subjects in curriculum. That 
is a matter that must follow the selection of subjects 
to be taught. 

1 . If we start at the point of view of the Church, 
as expressed in her Baptismal formula, we shall con- 
sider the child as from that moment the 
declared member of a divine family. That oatechism. 
family is based upon certain truths. It has 
a certain history in the past, a certain life with its 
traditions, its usages and customs and ideals. It is 
a family, with its laws of fellowship, with an im- 
memorial faith that has been from age to age wrought 
into clearer shape and structure through the experi- 
ences of innumerable souls. The ground of this faith 
is unchangeable, its perpetuation is assured, because 
it represents in the last analysis of its principles the 
essential experience of man as man. 

This is the fact that determines the place which 
the Church Catechism occupies in the training of the 
child. If we read it, with this in mind, we shall find 
its value unique. It is most guardedly free from the 
subtleties of definition. It give us statements of truth 
in the form of statements of fact. It has a statuesque 
simplicity. It sets forth the truths of religion in 
figure, so to speak, as things seen and tangible to the 
senses, rather than as speculations of the mind. 

There have been many grave errors committed in 
teaching the catechism, and often no doubt the child 
has acquired nothing beyond a parrot-like repetition 



H4 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL-ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

of words. Yet on the other hand, this result lies 
rather in the method of teaching than in 
feachinp. the matter taught. A certain little lad had 
been taught to define the mystery of the 
Trinity, and had in vain cudgelled his brain with the 
strangely meaningless words. One day in the 
country he was watching the men stowing hay in the 
barn-loft. Suddenly he saw three doors opening 
here and there into the huge black interior, each 
separate, yet each a door opening into the one great 
structure. It is needless to say that the boy had 
solved to his own satisfaction the doctrine of the 
Trinity. He had found his own point of view, and 
the truth had at last swung into his vision. 

Bishop Brooks once said to the students of Yale 

University in his ' ' Lectures on Preaching ' ' that 

there was no truth too great and deep for 

Bishop . fe r 

Brooks on them to preach, if they would only preach 
Preaching. Jt That is the divine art of the teacher 
also, the art of getting truth within view of the child, 
finding, as Mr. Patterson Du Bois tells us, the point 
of contact where the child and the truth touch each 
other. We need not fear to teach Christian doctrine, 
if we only teach it. 

2. Again, such a course of study must teach the 
Bible. But let us distinguish carefully between the 

— mm% Bible as a wonderful library, gathered 
The Bible. . /» s 

through many centuries, with its epics and 

histories, its dramas and poems, its proverbs, idyls, 

and stories, carrying us onward through the eventful 

life of a great race, — between this and the Bible as 

a text-book. I would not speak a word in dis- 






THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL-ITS COURSE OF STUDY- 115 

paragement of the very remarkable work, done dur- 
ing the last thirty years in the interest of The Int 
the International or Uniform Series of national 
Sunday-school Lessons. He would indeed 
be ignorant of the facts, who should deny that that 
series of lessons has rendered great service in the 
cause of religion. It has called attention to the Bible 
as never before. "It has," to use the words of 
Dr. Vincent, whose name commands the reverence 
of all who would serve the childhood of the Church, 
— "it has driven teachers to the study of educational 
principles and examples ; it has led to general 
schemes and outlines of Bible study; has increased 
the intellectual power of plain men in the Church; 
has led young and scholarly men to appreciate the 
higher intellectual standards, and has tended to 
connect Biblical and scientific study. The one great 
Text-book has thus increased the power, the teach- 
ing power of our Sunday-schools. ' ' Such a testimony 
from such a source is not lightly to be dismissed. 
1 ' But, ' ' and we quote again, "it is possible that 
enthusiasm in such a scheme as the Inter- _ _„ n 

The Bible 

national may have to some extent crowded excluding 
back some exercises which hitherto found c sm ' 
large place in the Sunday-school. So much regular 
Bible study may have had this effect. The historical 
method of studying history may have left too little 
time for verbal memorizing. The Bible may have 
taken the place of the Catechism." * 

It is sufficiently clear from these words that the 

* " The Modern Sunday-school," pp. 252-3. The Rev. John H. 
Vincent, D.D. 



Ii6 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

methods of Bible study so commonly followed in 
Sunday-schools during the past generation have not 
proved altogether wise or successful. The Bible is 
not a book to be used in this way. It does not lend 
itself to the principles of the uniform lesson. Lessons 
favourable to the adult student are not necessarily 
useful for the child. There is no known law of 
education, by which a series of lessons can be selected 
from the Book of Psalms, or the Prophecies of Isaiah 
or Jeremiah, which can be equally useful in all grades 
of a Church-school. 

The Bible is a vast storehouse of historic and 
literary and spiritual wealth. It has something of 
What the that incite variety that meets us in Nature. 
Bihieis. It is pre eminently a book created out of 
human life. It reflects everywhere this life, with its 
ceaseless change, its exhaustless variety of experi- 
ence, its deep undertones of mystery and sorrow, 
the tragedies and sins and toils of men, the play and 
interplay of souls, the sweep of empires, the rise 
and growth and fall of nations. Such a Book cannot 
be measured off and divided by hard-and-fast rules 
into uniform lessons, without two results: first, a 
faulty and forced interpretation of its selected 
passages, and second, a superficial and unworthy 
conception of the Book as a whole. Yet, on the 
other hand, we cannot teach religion without the 
Bible, just as we cannot teach music without the 
works of the great masters. 

Speaking of the value of the Classics in secular 
education, President Hadley of Yale University has 
recently pointed out the fact that their moral value 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 117 

lies in the remoteness of the standards which they 
set before the student. They lift before the ,, ., A 

J President 

modern age standards which are not affect- Hadley on 

ed by the shifting ideas and standards of e ' 

the present. ' ' The morality which ripens in such a 
soil may be fantastic; but it is powerful, it is dis- 
interested, and it leads the boys outside of themselves, 
. . . and nothing in secular education has been found 
to take the place of this classical background as a 
means of stimulating the growth of such a spirit. ' ' 
And then he adds these words: "The Bible is in 
many ways like the Classics, in possessing this sort 
of moral influence upon those who study it; and in 
some respects, of course, it far exceeds them in the 
intensity of its workings. 

Now right here is the point I desire to emphasize, 
that such a conception of the Bible recognises its 
singular and wonderful value to education Educational 
as education. It has too generally been value of 

• 1 1 ~r» 1 1 1 the Bible, 

considered a Book whose proper use lay 
in its presenting a certain raw material for the con- 
struction of theological systems. Men have claimed 
for its widely separated writings an artificial unity, 
which has been the creation of their imagination, 
rather than the note of its own inner life. The Bible 
is not to be so treated. It is not a storehouse of 
texts, which one uses by means of concordance and 
reference words to create altogether fantastic systems 
of belief. Rather, the Bible is so entirely the Book 
of Religion, that we cannot get its true meaning unless 
we study it book by book, and, if I may say so, set 
aside largely the sort of study of it which has been 



I iS THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

so common in the past, and which must prove largely 
inadequate to the deeper knowledge of it as the Book 
of Religion. There is a unity in it deeper than 
that of separated texts, a unity of spirit and soul, 
the unity of a great race, finding through a thou- 
sand years and more the ever-deepening knowledge 
of itself and its God. 

At this point, allow me to call attention to the 
suggestions made by the United States Bureau of 
United States Education, for the study of the Bible in 
Bureau of American colleges. In reviewing the 
general situation, the report observes that 
' ' the history and literature of the Hebrews and the 
Jews may and should be studied as other history and 
literature are studied. The peculiar religious element 
need not be dealt with, and modern sectarianism is 
not found in the Bible. Such a large and influential 
portion of universal history and literature should not 
be ignored or left to chance instruction." The 
following are some of the suggestions made : 
a "I. The aim should be some Bible 

suggestions 

for Bible work in every college in the country, state 
institutions included. 

" 2. Bible study should be conducted in the best 
modern way, with the use of the best books, and 
with the most skilful teachers obtainable. It is im- 
portant that the colleges understand that modern 
methods and radical higher criticism are not synony- 
mous. 

"3. The college Bible course should be so free 
from avowed and direct devotional aims that the 
teacher can demand as thorough work as in any 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 119 

college course. Bible study will then take its place 
as a worthy part of the college curriculum. 

' ' 4. The assignment of the systematic curriculum 
work to a trained specialist should not and will not in- 
terfere with extra-curriculum devotional Bible classes. 

" 5. It would seem a natural outcome of the care- 
ful differentiation of devotional study of the Bible 
from the curriculum study, which has been recom- 
mended above, that an important objection to the 
requirement of Bible study from college students dis- 
appears, viz., that it interferes with the sovereign 
rights of an American. It seems that a boy reaches 
the age of consent earlier in religious matters than 
in intellectual. Horace's Odes and Greek philosophy, 
but not the Psalms or the teaching of Jesus, may be 
required studies for him. 

"On the other hand, the absence of the strictly 
devotional element would for many destroy the chief 
argument for making Bible study required. It would 
seem, however, that moral and religious profit from 
the study of the Bible does not disappear with the 
disappearance of the immediately devotional ele- 
ment; that Bible truth, presented without appeal or 
invitation, presented as judicially as possible ; that 
the facts of the Bible, recited as the facts of profane 
history are recited ; that the ethics of the 
Bible, studied as any other subject is studied Moral value 

J J of literary 

(and no conscientious scruples, however Bible study- 
abnormally developed, can stand in the 
way of such treatment) , ought to form in the end as 
potent an influence over thoughtful men and women 
as could be demanded. 



120 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL-ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

"6. It is a sad commentary on former methods 
that the phrase prohibiting teaching which is ' sec- 
tarian in religion ' should be quoted as forbidding 
Bible study. Doubtless the legal difficulties differ 
in the various states. It may be that the time has 
not yet come when it would be fitting to press the 
claims of formal Bible study upon certain state 
institutions. Meantime, there is an abundant oppor- 
tunity, with rare, if any, exceptions, to include 
Hebrew history in ancient history, Biblical master- 
pieces of literature in literary courses, Biblical ethics 
in general ethics, until, in entire conformity to law, 
the students are put in possession of a fair knowledge 
of Bible facts." 

The suggestions are of the greatest value and sig- 
nificance. They point to a new and deeper use 
of the Bible in schemes of religious as well 

Suggestions , . . ___ , .. 

important as secular education. We shall use it as 

to Church- literature — a divine and inspired literature, 
schools. , 

it is true, but still a literature. We shall 
use it with such naturalness and freedom, with such 
intellectual and spiritual earnestness, with such fresh- 
ness of thought and feeling, that it will become to 
the childhood of the world a living and human book. 
We shall do much to take from it the stamp and 
atmosphere of unreal devotionalism by getting back 
into the Book itself. 

This was indeed the method of Jesus. You will 
recall His mode of dealing with the Pharisees when 
Method of He replied to them after this manner: — 
Jesus. i « You know within your hearts the truth of 

which I speak. But instead of following this inner 






THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 121 

voice you allow a literal and narrow traditionalism 
to dethrone your reason, your own sense of eternal 
things." It is for us to-day to learn this higher 
method, to use it and trust it. The child who is 
taught the story of Jonah, for example, in a narrow 
and unsympathetic spirit may give up his faith with 
Jonah. On the other hand the child who is taught 
that the faith of the soul rests on that which lies 
behind Jonah, discovers that the prophet to Nineveh 
was a man face to face with conscience, and not 
merely the hero of what to the growing lad seems 
an impossible and unreal adventure. True religious 
education must put the child in possession of the 
Bible, in such a sense and so far as to make it touch 
his life in the simple realities of his growing experi- 
ence. God, Who gave Himself to the boy Samuel, 
must through our ministry give Himself to the 
children of our present age. 

3. Once more, the Church must draw the child 
close up to God as revealed in His works. Have 
we ever stopped to notice how saturated ilatuie- 
the Bible is with nature ? Why, it begins stud y« 
in a Garden, and its last chapter sets the Heavenly 
city in the midst of trees and meadow-lands, and 
through it flows " the river of water of Life clear as 
crystal." Everywhere, God touches man through 
the earth, this outward life of flower and star and 
mountain and storm. With this in mind, it is sugges- 
tive to note how ordinary methods of teaching reli- 
gion have used nature as a kind of outside illustration 
and adornment of truth, rather than as something out 
of whose very life itself flow the truths of the spiritual 



122 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL-ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

world. There is a vast difference between Nature- 
study, as a concrete element in religious teaching, 
and telling stories about flowers and birds. When 
T . Jesus told men to consider carefully the 

Jesus close J J - / 

to the heart lily, how it grows, He was telling them 

of Nature. ^ they WQuld find in ^ unfolding [ ife 

something to fill their own life with richer sacredness 
and power. Not some growth meaningless to their 
life, but rather a growth into its own wondrous beauty 
by the eternal life of God working within it, as it 
worked in their own souls. 

4. Without dwelling at too great length on the 
various subjects connected with Religious Instruction, 
Geography let me briefly suggest some of them in 
Church addition. The history of the world is a 

school. history of changes in the map of the world. 

I think we have all been impressed with the general 
ignorance of young people in all questions of Sacred 
Geography as compared with their knowledge of what 
may be termed, for the sake of distinction, Secular 
Geography. Yet it is unquestionable that no really 
clear knowledge of the religious history of Christianity 
can be had unless it embraces some measure of 
geographical knowledge. Why so ? Because Bibli- 
cal Geography furnishes a concrete introduction to 
the life and teachings of the Bible. It brings the 
past into close and vital relations with the present. 
It should therefore be made a definite department in 
our Sunday-school curriculum. For this purpose 
we need reliable and scientific text-books, with the 
best maps available. Geography should be studied 
progressively and thoroughly, not impersonally, but 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 123 

always from the point of view of its relation to man. 
It is not an end in itself, as merely so much knowl- 
edge, but only an indispensable aid to the full under- 
standing of the message of God, revealed through 
and to mankind. 

5. Once more, the Church School must make far 
more of History than is commonly done. At present 
there seems to be no adequate attempt to 
give young people such definite knowledge. p ! ace of 
The Christian of to-day is in danger of 
finding himself, as it were, suspended in air, with no 
firm standing in historic facts. Between the times 
of the Apostles and our own age there is a vast 
history, of which the average Christian is almost 
absolutely ignorant. It may be stated, and, I fear, 
without much danger of question, that with the 
exception of two or three names and events, even 
the scholars in our Bible Classes have very little con- 
ception of those great historic movements that have 
made the modern world what it is. Yet the Faith 
of to-day is rooted in this great corporate life of the 
world, and the works of Christ, the Gesta Christi, 
as the late Charles Brace so happily put it, have filled 
the past nineteen centuries with events which are 
marvellous in their power to strengthen the hold of 
Christ upon modern life and thought. It is interest- 
ing and important in this connection to notice that 

this conviction of the value of history in _, ,,_ 

J The "Free 

the religious instruction of the young has Church" 

led to the preparation in Scotland, under Text - books - 

the editorship of Principal Salmond, of extremely 

fine Manuals of Church History, written for the Free 



124 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL-ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

Church Sunday-schools, and that the Oxford Church 
Text-books, for a similar use, are now 
The Oxford j n course f publication in England. The 
range of subjects covered in these manuals 
is very great, embracing not only history, but re- 
ligious doctrine and worship, and the study of New 
Testament ethics as applied to modern life. 

6. It is beyond question important to interpret 
present-day life in the terms of Christian truth. The 
Christian ancient Jewish Church was contemporary 
Ethics. w ith the life of the race at every point. 

The singular charm and power of the Bible is that 
it is vital at every point with the experience of the 
age, in which its saints and its sinners lived. The 
secret of power in Christianity must be the same. 
Christ must be contemporary with the twentieth cen- 
tury or He will become an obsolete factor in the 
growing life of humanity. God reveals Himself to- 
day — whether the day be that of Moses or Isaiah, of 
St. Paul or Luther, or of Lincoln and Gladstone, of 
Maurice and Beecher and Newman. God is the God 
of those now living, even as He was in their own 
day the God of the dead. Therefore the instruction 
of our youth must be abreast of the present problems 
which they are to face. 

Talk with any thoughtful man of business, and he 
will tell you that what he needs is to feel the 
The business strength of a powerful moral force im- 
world. mediately identified with his daily work. 

He will confess that his perpetual danger lies in the 
ease with which this present life, with its glamour, 
its almost brutal frankness, and its insidious yet 






THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY- 125 

tyrannous demands, confronts him. The laws of 

ethics, their ideal statements and standards must 

enter man's life in its youth. 

I There comes a time in this period of adolescence, 

when the youth is already passing out to the work of 

the world, going- into offices, taking his first 
1 1 11-1 1 1 First ex- 

lessons in business, looking through and periences 

within to the inner structure of the business of yontl1, 
world. The Church has a right to assume that the 
boy shall begin to study the moral problems that 
now confront him. It is a period when he finds 
himself drifting out from the influences of the Church. 
He is trying to adjust himself to the world as he sees 
it, and he feels far more keenly than we often realize 
the break between the ideals and the ignorances of 
childhood and the first rough disillusioning of early 
manhood. The Church must include Ethics in the 
religious instruction of her youth, if she would send 
them out properly equipped to meet the dangerous 
sophistries of the world. The boy must carry within 
himself a moral antidote to the temptations of his 
own manhood. 

7. I have not dwelt upon the important part 
which the Prayer-book and the Christian Year must 
play in any scheme of religious education. The Prayer- 
Some one has said that if the Christian Year, J?°* *f d the 

Christian 

with its cycle of Holy Days and Seasons, Tear, 
had been the invention of any one man, he would have 
established his claim upon the perpetual gratitude and 
veneration of the world. This is none too high an 
estimate. The Prayer-book is probably the most 
remarkable Book of Worship Christianity has pro- 



126 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 

duced, and is also its finest statement of faith. These 
subjects are to be taught and taught thoroughly. 
And by their use in Worship, by their continual pres- 
ence and influence in daily life, they become imbedded 
in the memory and affections forever. Their educa- 
tional value is beyond estimate. They create their 
own atmosphere, provide their inconceivably rich 
associations and traditions, and must be a constituent 
element in the educational work of the Church. 

III. In conclusion let me go back to the point 
from which we started out: the Church-school is a 
school, and must do its work in accordance with the 
principles of education as applied elsewhere. This 
must be the position, from which any real advance is 
to be made. Further, we must bear in mind that, 
whatever success the Sunday-school has had in the 
past, has been gained more in spite of the faulty 
methods generally used than in accordance with 
correct methods. The time has come 

Demand 

for new when the wide-spread dissatisfaction with 

methods. past metho ds calls for an earnest effort to 
correct them. There are many difficulties in the 
way of accomplishing this result. But the Church 
certainly has upon her side in this great task the 
interest, the experience, the costly skill, and rich 
devotion, of the leading educators of the age. 

This work is one that demands more of expert and 
highly trained intelligence, than at present 
Chnrch needs can be found within the Ministry of the 
caters. U Church. As in the creation of her cathe- 
drals, she calls to her aid those who 
have been trained as architects and builders, and in 






THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL— ITS COURSE OF STUDY. 127 

her worship those, whom God has inspired with 
the gifts of music and song; so in the education 
of her children, the Church may well command the 
service of those whose lives have been consecrated 
to the Ministry of Education, and whose minds have 
been inspired with that gift of God's Spirit, by which 
they are called to rightly divide the words of know- 
ledge and truth. Indeed it is by so doing that the 
Church will prove herself faithful to that most sacred 
trust of guiding the youth of the world into the truth 
and knowledge of God. 



VI. 



THE PREPARATION OF THE SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL TEACHER. 

By Dr. Walter L. Hervey, Examiner, New York Board 
of Education; Former President, Teachers College. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE VI. 

Primary assumptions. 

Three Problems: (a) Subject-matter, (b) Pupil, (V) Teacher. 
The Subject-matter, — two ways of treating it. 
The Poet's Way. 

Power of Dramatic Imagination. 

Its use in the Bible work. 

Illustrated by S. Peter and S. Paul at Beautiful Gate of 
Temple. 

Also by the " Story of Cadmus." 

Applied to Bible Teaching. 
The Philosopher's Way. 

Illustrations of its use. 

Danger of Wrong Interpretations illustrated. 

Important to find precise meaning of each paragraph. 

Directions for the Study of any Subject-matter. 

Knowledge and the Pupil. 

Catechism compared with Bible. 
The Pupil. 

General Principle in his treatment by teacher. 
Illustrations of its use. 
Special Rule from General Principle. 
Additional Points of Insight needed by teacher. 
Illustrated by Hamlet and Guildenstern. 
The Teacher Himself. 
External and Internal Authority. 
Help the Pupil to find the Truth himself. 
Proper Place of the Bible. 
Jesus Christ in the Child-life. 
General Negations. 



THE PREPARATION OF THE SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL TEACHER. 

In attacking this problem of the preparation of the 
Sunday-school teacher, I shall assume that the 
Sunday-school teacher, who has read the primary 
chapters that precede this, understands assumptions. 
pretty clearly what he is preparing for ; and I shall 
further assume that we are in substantial agreement 
that religious teaching is not a matter of form, or of 
convention, — the teaching of certain things which it 
were a shame not to know, — and that it is not 
primarily a matter of knowledge, but is an affair of 
life : that religious teaching has to do primarily with 
the normal life and growth of spiritual beings, and 
that its end and aim is to raise up a generation of 
well-nourished and normally growing children who 
have keen interests and true tastes, "who love and 
hate aright, ' ' and who know what they know in the 
right way. 

In pursuit of this aim it is necessary that Three prob- 
every teacher should grapple with three lemstobe 

11 i i i r i 1 • me * ! ■k "^ ne 

problems: the problem of the subject- subject- 
matter of instruction, the problem of the ™ atter * ., n ' 
' ' . r The pupil. 

pupils to be instructed, and the problem of in. The 
himself and his conception of the truth. 



*3 2 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

I. The teacher's mastery of his subject — of what 
does it consist ? What must the teacher have done, 
I The sub- or ^ e a k" e to do, before it can be said of 
jeot-matter. him, ' ' He is master of that which he would 
teach " ? In other words, How must a Sunday-school 
teacher know his Sunday-school lesson in order to 
teach it ? There are two chief ways of 
JfTeaming. grasping any truth : one we may call the 
way of the poet, and the other the way of 
the philosopher. I should say that the teacher must 
have both. 

By the ' ' way of the poet ' ' I mean the power to 
create, to put life into persons and things. And I 
have in mind that dramatic imagination which 
enables Kipling to find the soul of an engine or a 
ship; which makes him able to look on the world 
(a) The through a horse's eyes, talk horse-talk, — 
poet's way, even the horse-slang of the back pasture — 
and make the horse that played polo say : ' ' My 
hock is swelled as big as a nose-bag." Ernest 
Seton-Thompson's stories of Vixen, Rag, and Wahb 
are in this respect not less truly dramatic than 
Browning's "Ring and the Book," for in both the 
author identifies himself with the life which he de- 
picts, and touches the springs of that life. 

This dramatic imagination the teacher must have. 
For how can the teacher depict so vividly that those 

Power of w ^° h ear seem a ^ so to see > if he have not 
dramatic the vision himself ? How can he read 
with such expression that the words make 
pictures in the minds of those who listen, unless in 
his own mind there lives the image he would create 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 133 

for another ? The teacher, like the poet, is a maker ; 
he is a creator ; it is his office to take material — from 
the Catechism, from the Bible, from Nature, from 
human experience, — that but for him might be with- 
out form and void, — and make it live. 

In preparing to teach, or to tell a Bible story, 
therefore, the first thing a teacher should do is to 
put himself into the place of the chief char- 
acter, and then to put himself into the place t h* Bible. 
of each of the other characters in turn. He 
must think what the past of each has been ; he must 
stock his own mind with the memories they must 
have had ; he must think what is their present out- 
look on life, and their hopes and fears for the future. 

Let us take, for example, the story of Peter and 
John's affair with the elders, as told in the early 
chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. Peter 
and John had healed a lame man at the g ti p eter an( j 
Beautiful Gate of the Temple, and had then St - John in 

t, ■ the Temple. 

preached to the crowds of people that ran 
together unto them ' * in the porch that is called Solo- 
mon's, greatly wondering " ; and then, as the narra- 
tive tells, ' ' As they spake unto the people, the priests 
and the captain of the Temple and the Sadducees 
came upon them, being sore troubled because they 
taught the people, and proclaimed through Jesus the 
resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on 
them, and put them in ward unto the morrow; for it 
was now eventide. But many of them that heard 
the word believed ; and the number of the men came 
to be about five thousand. And it came to pass on 
the morrow, that their rulers and elders and scribes 



134 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

were gathered together in Jerusalem ; and Annas the 
high priest was there, and Caiaphas, and John, and 
Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of 
the high priest. And when they had set them in 
the midst they inquired, By what power, or in what 
name, have ye done this ? " Then follows the 
story of Peter's brave and telling reply, and the 
complete discomfiture of the great men who would 
have been glad to do away with them, as they had 
with their Master some three months before, but that 
they feared the people. 

The narrative is a very brief and plain one. Those 
modern aids to emotion, and devices for depriving 
men of the necessity of thinking for themselves, are 
conspicuous by their absence. There are no head- 
lines to make you feel, and no editorials to keep you 
from thinking. Nothing is easier than to read the 
words of this story, and to miss the points of the 
situation. I do not say that boys and girls ought to 
be expected to put themselves wholly at the point of 
view of Peter and John ; but that they can to some 
extent, and to a greater extent than they sometimes 
do. Their difficulty is not wholly due to the fact 
that the passage is set for Sunday reading and study, 
though I think it more than likely that its unreality 
is enhanced by the fact that the passage comes out 
of the Bible and is read on Sunday. I do not 
believe that Sunday is quite so real as other days, or 
the Bible quite so real as other books, though I 
firmly believe — in fact I know — that both can be 
made so. 

The wise teacher, therefore, in preparing a lesson 






THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 135 

on Peter and John, will not deceive himself. He 
will be fully conscious that boys and girls 
have, under certain circumstances, a char- gt * ^ e 
acteristic way of dealing with words, a way 
which is not wholly peculiar to boys and girls either. 
Words, coming through the ear and seeking admis- 
sion to the mind, they receive with outward sem- 
blance of hospitality, show them to a back room, 
remote from the living-room, and keep them there, 
with no warmth except that which they may supply 
to one another, and no food except what they may 
have brought with them. When the words are 
wanted by the teacher they are, or may be, pro- 
duced, in about the same state of preservation as 
when they were stored. Such words as Annas, 
Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, in the passage be- 
fore us, are especially liable to be put into cold 
storage in this way; abstract terms also, and anything 
that is not understood, or made real, or at least felt. 
How shall this sort of burial alive be avoided ? 
How may the teacher make sure that the words of 
the story shall be taken into the living-room where 
they may make friends with the family and the 
favoured guests already there, and become part of 
the life of the little community gathered round the 
hearthstone ? The answer is : The teacher may 
make words live for his pupils by first of all making 
them live for himself. 

For who were Peter and John ? They were just 
poor fishermen, and for some time back they had not 
been even fishermen. They spoke in such a way 
that educated people could tell at once that they were 



136 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

" unlearned and ignorant men." Moreover, it was 
only about three months ago that these 
words men had fled for their lives for fear of these 

llve ' same gentlemen who had seized them and 

locked them up the day before. And who were 
these gentlemen ? Why, they were men in authority 
in the Church, they were among the most important 
and powerful people in the city. They had had 
people put to death before now for disagreeing with 
them. The social and official distance between Peter 
and John and Annas and Caiaphas was as great as if 
two Italian chestnut-venders should be haled before 
the presence of His Honour the Mayor, and the 
Corporation Counsel, and the Controller, and His 
Honour the Mayor's brother; and the courage dis- 
played by these fishermen in ' ' talking right up to " 
the high priest was certainly not less than might be 
shown by the poor Italians if, in that dread presence, 
they spoke brave words in their defence. For Peter 
courageously struck out from the shoulder and 
accused these men of having crucified Jesus by whose 
power the miracle of healing was done; and they 
actually cowed their questioners, so that all they did 
was to threaten them if they ever did such a thing 
again. And so, when Peter and John said that if it 
came to a choice between obeying God and obeying 
them, they would easily know which to do, these 
great men could do nothing but impotently threaten 
them some more, and let them go. 

And what were the feelings of these people ? 
What, for example, were the feelings of the man 
who had been lame for forty years, and a beggar for 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 137 

almost as long, as he looked on Peter and John ex- 
pecting an alms, as he heard one of them 
say ' ' Silver and gold have I none " ? as Put yourself 
he heard ' ' but such as I have give I thee ' ' ? lac6i 
as he found that he could walk ? as he 
went to his home and back again to the Temple 
the next day, not to beg, but to praise God ? These 
feelings are worth entering into, they can be entered 
into, and they should be entered into by the teacher 
preparing the lesson. So also into the inner life of 
each of the other actors in the drama in turn the 
teacher should enter: the group around the high 
priest, their discomfiture, and their schemes for 
accomplishing later what they had been baffled in 
now ; and Peter and John with their fearless courage 
when under fire, and their jubilant rejoicing with 
their friends after it was all over. I even think that 
the teacher, who wished to establish perfect rapport 
with the situation, might imagine and construct the 
accounts of the affair that might have appeared in 
the public prints of the day, — assuming that there 
were such things as public prints, — the account 
appearing in the official paper of the established 
Church, that in the Christian's paper, that in the 
secular paper, with titles and headlines as real as 
life. He should, in a word, make the story live in 
his own mind, not only by transporting himself to 
antiquity, but also by translating the story into 
terms of modern life, though there are grave dangers 
in this, of which I shall speak later on. 

And now, lest by my crude illustration I deter any 
from attempting to carry out the principle I advocate, 



138 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

allow me to cite a classic instance from the hand of 
A further a master. First I will read an incident 
illustration. f rom the story of Cadmus, as it appears in 
Bullfinch's " Age of Fable," and in Addison's trans- 
lation of Ovid, and then alongside of these I will 
place the version in Hawthorne's Second Wonder 
Book, beginning at the point where Cadmus has 
sown the dragon's teeth. 

"Scarce had he done so," says the Bullfinch 
story, "when the clods began to move, and the 
points of spears to appear above the surface. Next 
helmets with their nodding plumes came up, and 
next the shoulders and breasts and limbs of men 
with weapons, and in time a harvest of armed 
warriors. " 

Here is Addison: 

" He sows the teeth at Pallas's command, 
And flings the future people from his hand ; 
The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows, 
And now the pointed spears advance in rows ; 
Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests, 
Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts ; 
O'er all the field the breathing harvest swarms, 
A growing host, a crop of men and arms." 

Succinct and fairly vivid recitals both. Now for 
Hawthorne : 

"The sun was shining slantwise over the field, 
and showed all the moist, dark soil, just like any 
other newly planted piece of ground. All at once 
Cadmus fancied he saw something glisten very 
brightly, first at one spot, then at another, and then 
at a hundred and a thousand spots together. Soon 
he perceived them to be the steel heads of spears, 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 139 

sprouting up everywhere like so many stalks of grain, 
and continually growing taller and taller. Next 
appeared a vast number of bright sword-blades, 
thrusting themselves up in the same way. A 
moment afterwards the whole surface of the ground 
was broken by a multitude of polished brass helmets, 
coming up like a crop of enormous beans. So 
rapidly did they grow that Cadmus now discerned 
the fierce countenance of a man beneath every one; 
in short, before he had time to think what a wonder- 
ful affair it was, he beheld an abundant harvest of 
what looked like human beings, armed with helmets 
and breastplates, shields, swords, and spears; and 
before they were well out of the earth, they 
brandished their weapons, and clashed them one 
against another, seeming to think, little while as they 
had yet lived, that they had wasted too much of life 
without a battle. Every tooth of the dragon had 
produced one of these sons of deadly mischief. Up 
sprouted, also, a great many trumpeters " — But I 
must leave you to imagine how the author has, by 
the use of mere words, made us hear the tremendous 
and ear-shattering blasts of martial music, just as he 
has made us see, with our own eyes, as he certainly 
must have seen with his, the sprouting of this crop 
of men ; for if he had not been an eye-witness of the 
scene, how could he tell us later on " how the earth 
out of which they had so lately grown was incrusted 
here and there on their bright breastplates, and 
even begrimed their faces ; just as you may have seen 
it clinging to beets and carrots when pulled out of 
their native soil " ? 



14° THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

From the Bullfinch account you gather that the 
warlike crop came up, but from the Hawthorne story 
you learn that they grew, and you feel that you must 
have seen them growing yourself. The latter story 
has sound, colour, atmosphere, movement, life. Once 
heard it is a thing to live in the imagination for ever. 

And now let me make an important qualification. 
Nowhere is good taste and a certain reserve more 
requisite than in such appeals to the imagination as 
these I advocate. The typical negro sermon is a 
Application warning against excess and offence against 
to teaching, taste. Moreover, the bow of Hawthorne is 
not for every one's stretching. But every teacher can 
prepare himself by exercising his own imagination, 
however much he may be constrained to refrain from 
elaborate attempts at expanding before the class. 
The essential thing is that the teacher make the sub- 
ject live in his own mind. If he has done that, he 
will find little by little that his very inflections and 
tone and gestures show that something is behind 
them. He will find the imagery creeping into his 
speech, and will see the answering light coming in 
his pupil's eyes, and in the strength of that assurance 
he may venture farther flights until he finds that he 
too is a member of the guild of those who can make 
the " eyes see pictures when they're shut." 

But the poet's way must needs be followed up by 
the way of the philosopher, by which I mean that 
the teacher in preparing his lesson should 
philosopher's make a desperate effort to find out what it 
way. means. For if metaphysics, as Professor 

James has said, " is only an unusually stubborn effort 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 141 

to think clearly, ' ' a philosopher is only a man who 
tries to penetrate the disguise of things and find out 
what they really are. Every man you meet on the 
street, every character you run across in a book, 
every story, every parable, has a meaning more or 
less definite and precise, more or less susceptible of 
being expressed. It is the teacher's business to 
form for himself as clear a notion as he can of that 
meaning, to express it in his own words, or find 
other words in which to express it better. 

I am speaking for myself — and I may be speaking 
for others — when I say that effort is required to 
search out the true meaning of a man or a book, and 
that that effort is sometimes so great that it does not 
come natural to make it. We all of us take our 
judgments at second hand once in a while, some ol 
us most of the time; and it is a rare and precious 
thing to meet one of those balanced and judging 
minds that are bent on giving every one his absolute 
due, in spite of prejudice and in spite of custom. 

Have you ever figured out for yourselves the pre- 
cise meaning, to yourselves at least, of the Book of 
Jonah, or tried to view the characters of 
Jacob and of David as wholes, or studied 
the parables of our Lord with intent to see the prin- 
ciple of which each was the illustration ? This sort 
of thing the teacher must do, for if he fail here he 
may find himself teaching particulars unillumined by 
the rays of universal truth, and hence inapplicable 
to your case or mine. For if we do not know the 
meaning of a fact, how can we use it ? Not only is 
a meaning an illuminator, throwing light on blind 



142 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

facts and showing their applicability; it is also a 
bond, binding together individuals that are useless 
alone. Professor Moulton in his book of Bible Stories 
from the New Testament has grouped his material, 
and given telling names to the groups. For exam- 
ple, under the heading, "A Specimen Day in the 
Life of Jesus," he groups several incidents, and 
thereby makes both the incidents and the life mean 
more to us. " An Encounter with a Foreigner " is 
one of his titles, and later on, in the Acts of the 
Apostles, we read of missionary adventures, including 
the " Mob of Ephesus " and the " Conspiracy." I 
need not dwell on the difference between calling a 
lesson ' ' The XIX. of Acts, " or u Paul at Ephesus, ' ' 
and "The Mob of Ephesus"; or the difference 
between "Christ and the Syrophenician Woman," 
and "An Encounter with a Foreigner." In the 
one case you have what the incident is called; in 
the other you have what it really is. 

There is no doubt that this is a work of difficulty, 
and a work fraught with considerable danger. There 
is danger that we may seek serious and formal morals, 
where there exists nothing that will not be spoiled 
by formulation ; as when one attempts to read into a 
song, like Tennyson's 

" Alone and warming his five wits 
The white owl in the belfry sits," 

a meaning so formidable as that ' ' This expresses 
the yearning of the solitary after social life " ; or as 
when one might try to read into some of Haw- 
thorne's vague allegorical stories, meanings of which 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 143 

the author was but dimly conscious when he wrote 
them, and of which, when asked to explain what he 
meant, he said, " I suppose I had some idea about 
what those things meant when I wrote them, but I 
declare I don't know what it is now." 

There is danger, too, that we shall get wrong or 
partial meanings, as did the little German peasant 
boy whom I once heard in the religion 



class, reciting the lesson on how Abraham ^ong in- 
delivered Lot from the four kings. The imputations 

illustrated. 

time had come for the last of the ' ' formal 
steps, ' ' and the child was trying to formulate in set 
terms the lesson of the narrative. ' ' Abraham helped 
Lot in his time of need," said he, after considerable 
questioning. ' ' Well, what do we learn from that ? ' ' 
Said the boy after much cogitation, " My neighbours 
ought to help me in my time of need. " 

Granting that there are some things of which the 
meaning is something felt, rather than something 
thought, there are plenty of meanings that 



must, by the teacher at least, be sought me^JnTof 6 

out and made thinkable by being expressed every para- 

graph read. 
in terms, and 1 want to suggest two ways 

of doing this. First, let the teacher, in his Bible- 
study or in ordinary reading, school himself in 
finding and stating the precise meaning of each 
paragraph he reads; for if a paragraph is rightly 
constructed, it has a topic that may be expressed in 
a single sentence or a single phrase. And second, 
having done this, let him in like manner arrive at the 
meaning of a whole chapter or an entire book, by 
grouping together these topic sentences into a topic 



144 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

paragraph. By way of summary of these points I 
am now going to quote from a syllabus which, at the 
request of the Commission, I have prepared for the 
use of teachers studying one of the books in the 
Course ; for the directions for study here given seem 
to me to be applicable to the teacher's study of any 
book. 

1. Read the whole chapter (or lesson) through 
once for the purpose of getting a general idea of 
Directions what it means. When you have finished 
for the study t ^ s reac ii n or close the book, and write a 

of any sub- ° 

ject-matter. brief statement in answer to the question, 

■ 4 What is the point of this passage ? ' ' 

2. Read the chapter, sentence by sentence, para- 
graph by paragraph, trying to grasp the meaning 
clearly, precisely, personally. 

Some of the words contain " buried metaphors," 
pictures; see that you see these pictures, and are 
prepared to make others see them. 

Some of the sentences are expressed in abstract 
language, conveying a general truth; find concrete 
illustrations of every one of these. Where the author 
uses an illustration, find other illustrations of your 
own. 

Where the author uses one form of statement, use 
another of your own. See in how many ways you 
can say the same thing. (There are many ways of 
putting things, as there are many flies in the fisher- 
man's book.) 

This is the step of clearness, of detail, of pictur- 
ing, of amplification and enrichment of materials. 
Its purpose is to make the truth clear, definite, 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 145 

concrete, and so warm, living, and ready for 
action. 

3. Read the chapter, paragraph by paragraph, 
asking yourself, ' ' What question is answered by this 
paragraph ? " " What short statement will precisely 
express the point of this paragraph (and so be the 
answer to the question just framed) ? " " What 
maxim, or text, or proverb, or pithy saying applies 
at just this point ? ' ' How is this paragraph related 
to the whole, — does it express a new thought, or 
amplify one already developed, — does it suggest a 
paragraph or sentence in another connection ? How 
does it follow from what precedes ? how lead to what 
follows ? In a word, if it is a link, what are the 
co-ordinate links ? 

Make an outline of the chapter or the book, with 
heads and sub-heads, being careful not to make 
heads sub-heads, or sub-heads heads. And with all 
this thinking, be alert for personal meanings, for 
applications. 

This is the step of comparing, condensing, gene- 
ralizing, binding together into wholes. Its purpose 
is to get at the truth by weeding out ideas that 
seemed true when standing alone, but which on 
comparison are seen to be false; and, by massing 
and organizing, to make our mental forces into reg- 
ular troops instead of guerrillas and bushwhackers. 

To sum up: First a rough general view, such as 
a civil engineer might gain by riding over the 
country he is to survey. Second, clearness as to 
facts ; warmth in details ; putting yourself into the 
thing, — whether it be thing done, thing seen, or 



146 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

thing felt. Third, compacting parts into wholes, 
seeing ends from beginnings, organizing for action. 
And at each step the thought of personal assimila- 
tion, and of use : What does this mean to me ? Is 
it true ? Could I defend it ? Do I disagree with it, 
and why ? How can I use, apply, follow, live it ? 
How make it live in the minds and lives of my 
pupils ? 

Before leaving this part of my subject I want to 
make the same qualification I made in speaking of 
the teacher's dramatic imagination. When I speak 
v , , of the teacher's need to know as well as feci 

Knowledge J 

and the the meaning of that which he teaches, I do 
pupl ' not necessarily imply that the pupil should 

also have this knowledge with equal explicitness. 
It is sometimes well that he should hear, or at once 
make for himself, a clear and definite formulation, 
and it is sometimes better that the moral or the prin- 
ciple should remain just beneath the surface, ready 
to break through of itself in due time. The full 
discussion of this point does not belong to the present 
subject. The point I am now making is that the 
teacher at any rate must be clearly conscious of that 
which he is teaching as a rational whole, and he 
must be conscious of the meaning of that whole for 
himself and for his pupils. For if the teacher have 
this clear view of the way, he will be able to lead 
the pupil toward the light where he can see for him- 
self; but if the teacher have it not, he will be as the 
blind leading the blind, where both fall into the 
ditch. 

In treating of the teacher as poet and philosopher 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 147 

I have spoken as if the teacher's work were confined 
to the teaching of concrete passages, like Catechism, 
the stories of Scripture. I have not for- etc, com- 

pared with 

gotten that the teacher muct also prepare the Bible for 
to teach relatively abstract matter such as teach "ig. 
that found in the Catechism, or in the Sermon on 
the Mount. But the difference between teaching 
a concrete passage and an abstract text is only 
apparent. In the story the teacher must construct 
in his own mind a fabric which is partly particular 
and partly general : he must fill in colour, and atmo- 
sphere, and detail, and he must find the meaning; 
and so make the story live. In the Catechism he 
must do precisely the same thing: he must make 
the dead words live, by clothing them with imagery, 
which is, as it were, flesh and blood to them, and 
must breathe into them the breath of human sym- 
pathy and human application. The only difference 
is in the data. In the one case — the story — you 
have given the concrete and your problem is to 
invest it with universal meaning. In the other case 
— the text or Catechism — you are given the universal 
and your problem is to invest it with particular signi- 
ficance and application. In either case you are to 
give the touch that makes alive: for the particular 
deed is not alive except it be lighted up by the word, 
and the general word is not alive except it be clothed 
upon by a deed. 

II. And now we come to the second element in 
the teacher's preparation. For it is not n. The 
enough that the teacher know the subject he P u P iL 
is to teach. He must also know the person he is to 



148 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

teach. It is not enough that he accomplish the feat 
of putting himself at the point of view of Peter and 
John, of David and Abraham; he must also get on 
the inside of each member of his class, and look out 
on life through his eyes, be circumscribed with his 
limitations of imagery and of language, feel with his 
feelings, like with his likes, burn with his burnings. 
The teacher must be his subject before he can teach 
it. He must be his pupil before he can teach him. 
For only thus can he find the point of contact 
between both. 

This principle finds illustration every time a 
teacher translates his thought into terms of the child's 
understanding, explaining what he has not seen by 
The princi- what he has seen ; as when the teacher 
pie applied, helps the child to understand the draft of 
a stove by showing him the draft in a lamp-chimney ; 
or teaches the child, who knows fog but not steam, 
that steam is a kind of fog; and to another child, who 
knows steam but not fog, he explains fog as a kind 
of steam. A teacher who has little regard to this 
need of sacrificing one's own point of view and 
entering into the consciousness of the one he is try- 
ing to teach, will be apt, when explaining the 
curious phenomenon of liquid air — how it boils when 
placed on ice, to say that the liquid air is so much 
colder than the ice that it boils when placed on it, 
and will mystify his pupils, for who ever heard of a 
thing boiling because it was colder than something 
else ? The true teacher will readily resolve the 
mystery by reducing to a common denominator — 
either saying that liquid air boils on ice because ice 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 149 

is so much hotter than liquid air, or that the tea- 
kettle boils over fire because the water is so much 
colder than the fire. Skill in this fine art of reducing 
ideas to a common denominator is the sine qua non 
of all good teaching. 

The good teacher drives his ideas in pairs, has at 
least two strings to every bow. If he be a geography- 
teacher, wishing to give an idea of the 

1 r a 1 1 1 t-m 1 Illustrations, 

magnitude of Alaska, he says : ' * Place the 
original thirteen colonies down on Alaska; now turn 
them over as if their edge were a hinge; turn them 
over again, and you have enough territory yet un- 
covered to hold all of Europe. " Or if density of 
population be the subject, he will say : ' ' Take the 
entire population of the United States and put them 
in Texas, and the density is no greater than in 
Belgium." Or if he be a Latin teacher, he will be 
continually shocking his pupils into a livelier con- 
sciousness by such means as paraphrasing the Latin 
proverb " You can't squeeze water out of a pum- 
ice," by, "You can't suck blood out of a turnip." 
Sabura, a street in Rome, he will paraphrase by 
' ' Bowery ' ' ; trojugenas , by ' ' upper ten " or " first 
families of Virginia"; endromis, a woollen cloak 
worn by gladiators, by " sweater " ; toga and alceus, 
by ' ' frock coat and patent leathers ' ' ; and the 
phrase gladius avi, which boys will always translate, 
a sword of a grandfather, or the sword of the grand- 
father, or a sword of the grandfather, all of which are 
mere words, he will translate by the more modern and 
real and common-sensible " grandfather 's sword." 
And if as the result of his efforts he overhears his 



150 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

pupils on the playground saying, "Awful socks for 
old Csesar when that chap Ariovistus said he'd no 
business in his Gaul," he will not be shocked, he 
will rejoice ; for has he not here a proof that a spark 
from the subject has caught the tinder of the child's 
mind ? 

I once heard a great teacher teach the Book of 
Amos to a class of over five hundred pupils. The 
first verse was one of those things that seem formal 
and perfunctory until you see their significance. 
" The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen 
of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the 
days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of 
Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years 
before the earthquake. " " Why, ' ' said the teacher, 
"here we have a title-page, with the name of the 
author and who he was, and the date." In Pro- 
fessor Moulton's "Modern Reader's Bible" you 
will see the title-pages written as such ; and you will 
find also poetry and dialogue written as poetry and 
dialogue are usually written, and orations like those 
of Moses in Deuteronomy called by their proper 
modern name, to the enhancing of our ability to 
comprehend their meaning and their marvellous 
power; for, when the orations of Moses are reduced 
to a common denominator with those of Cicero and 
Demosthenes, we are at once able to place them 
where they belong, immeasurably beyond both. 

Out of this general principle there grows the 
special rule that the teacher must be careful how he 
introduces a subject to a class. Now at first thought 
it seems as if it ought not to make such a vital differ- 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. J51 

ence what the first step is — whether the boy learned 
his Catechism question first, and then had g ecial rxxle 
it explained to him, or first had it ex. from general 
plained to him and then learned it. He prmcpe ' 
has to learn it some time and he has at some time 
to have it explained. What difference which comes 
first ? But it really does make a great deal of differ- 
ence in most things, doesn't it ? whether we begin 
at the right end or the wrong end, whether we put 
the cart before the horse or behind him, whether we 
begin with the soup or with confetti, whether we step 
down from the second-story window by the aid of a 
ladder previously placed in position, or step down 
without the aid of the ladder placed in position after 
we had had our fall, and whether we learn to slide 
down a rope before the fire or afterwards. And 
these figures are not so far out of the way; for a 
proper beginning does serve, does it not?, as a ladder 
to help us climb step by step to the truth we are 
trying to understand. The condition of a child's 
mind, after he has been given a form of words of the 
meaning of which he has as yet no inkling, is not 
unlike the condition of a child's stomach when he 
has been fed a heavy meal for which he has no 
appetite. It is possible in either case to help the 
child to some semblance of digestion, or at least to 
keep the dose from killing him, but not without loss, 
and perhaps not without producing in the child a 
rooted distaste for that kind of food. 

A fact or idea unloaded upon a mind not made 
ready to receive it is like a minister supplying a 
strange pulpit in an inhospitable community. There 



T5 2 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

is no one at the train to meet him ; no one offers to 
entertain him ; the inn has but one bed and that is 
not made up, and there is no fire in the room. The 
people come to church, but they do not greet him 
before the service, or respond during the service, or 
thank him after the service ; and the man is so chilled 
that the virtue in him is frozen at its source. Some 
men there are who cannot be frozen out, and there 
are some truths that will live and thrive anywhere, 
whether they be prepared for or not. But in most 
cases some sort of preparation is necessary. This 
may take the form of the arousing of curiosity 
regarding that which is to be presented; or of a 
demand for the solution of a problem. It may be 
accomplished through establishing emotional or in- 
tellectual congruity: by arousing feelings akin to the 
tone of the story, or by calling to remembrance 
kindred facts or ideas, and stationing them at the 
threshold as a kind of reception committee, — for it 
is the ' law of the mental jungle ' that only on the 
introduction of some one already in can entrance be 
granted to him who is without. 

In planning this preparation the teacher should 
remember that there is possible an artistic and ele- 
gant way, whereby meanings are conveyed without 
explicit or formal statement, whereby the subject of 
the lesson is made to be felt without being, as yet, 
formulated, whereby the introduction shades into the 
body of the story without jar or jolt. In general 
I should say that the teacher should aim to make 
the preparation indirect rather than direct, informal 
rather than formal, and as brief as possible. 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 153 

There are other essential qualities and aspects of 
the teacher's knowledge of his pupils, but the limits 
of my time forbid, and the plan of this Additional 
course makes it unnecessary, that I should points of 

- . . insight which 

enter upon them. Suffice it to say that in a teacher 
addition to the sympathy which the teacher needs ' 
must have with the child's point of view, there must 
be the teacher's insight into the child's stage of 
religious development, into the method of his growth, 
into the difference between boys and girls, into the 
relative place of action and of contemplation, and 
into the peculiar dangers that beset the path of one 
who would provide proper nutrition and exercise. 
This insight is essential. For if the teacher have 
not this knowledge and the skill to use it, he will be 
like poor, prying Guildenstern, trying to ninstrated 
peep through the chinks of Hamlet's in- by Hamlet, 
scrutability. Guildenstern, you remember, f r c Ml™ en 
has been set to find out Hamlet's secret, stud y« 
and he knows no other way but plain pumping. 
Hamlet gives him a lesson in pedagogy which 
might be taken to heart by many a teacher, and 
which is the classic argument for knowing the mind 
you would teach. 

" HAMLET. . . . Will you play upon this pipe ? 

"Guildenstern. My lord, I cannot. 

" Ham. I pray you. 

"Guild. Believe me, I cannot. 

" Ham. I do beseech you. 

"Guild. I know no touch of it, my lord. 

" Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ven- 
tages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath 



154 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

with your mouth, and it will discourse most elegant 
music. Look you, these are the stops. 

''Guild. But these cannot I command to any 
utterance of harmony; I have not the skill. 

"Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a 
thing you make of me ! You would play upon me ; 
you would seem to know my stops ; you would pluck 
out the heart of my mystery ; you would sound me 
from my lowest note to the top of my compass : and 
there is much music, excellent voice, in this little 
organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do 
you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe ? 
Call me what instrument you will, though you can 
fret me, you cannot play upon me." 

III. And now we come to that in the teacher's 

preparation which lies at the root of everything else, 

and is the fundamental dynamic in all 
in. The , . f . , . ; _ 

teacher teaching — a something which 1 can try to 

himself, describe but hardly know what to name. 
I mean the quality that enables the teacher of re- 
ligious truth to speak as one having authority, and 
not as one who takes things at second hand, or as 
one who has allowed himself to be overwhelmed by 
a load of conventional lore which he cannot make his 
very own, or as one who does not know whom he 
has believed. But let us here distinguish between 
two things radically different. For there is an 
External and autnor ity that works from without and there 
internal is an authority that works from within; 

on y * and the working of these is vitally different 
each from the other. 

External authority says, ' ' You must believe be-* 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 155 

cause I say so, or because the Book says so. ' ' Its 
attitude is one of compulsion from without. The 
voice of authority that speaks from within says, " I 
must believe because I cannot do otherwise — because 
this is the truth, and I know it. " External authority 
says, '< This is true because it is the Bible." Inner 
authority says, ' ' This is the Bible because it is 
true." The teacher, who depends on outer compul- 
sion, is continually desirous of making his pupils 
think as he thinks, and believe as he believes. The 
teacher, who aims only to arouse the inner voice in 
the depths of the child's own soul, seeks 
only to help the child to find the truth, to find the 
In the class of the former you will find a trutl1 ' 
teacher trying to teach by talking at the pupils and 
trying to convince by talking them down. In such 
a class you will even see the questions of the class 
frowned down, slurred over, postponed till a later 
time that never comes — as if questions were not the 
terminal buds of the child's growing life. Such a 
teacher is trying to press the death-mask of his own 
arrested development upon the living faces of his 
pupils. In a class of the latter type the teacher is 
not less positive, but he is more honest, more patient, 
and more fair. 

I do not mean that teachers of the former type are 
confined to the Sunday-school, or that teachers of 
the latter type are found only in secular schools. 
Far from it. And yet the tendency is to regard 
religious teaching as the proper field for authority 
(in the narrower sense), and secular teaching the 
proper field for private judgment, And from this 



I5 6 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

distinction there has arisen that gulf that tends to 
divide the one realm from the other, with the in- 
evitable result of making one realm less real than 
the other. 

It has often been thought that the Bible should be 
looked upon and treated as something separate and 
„ „. special, to be read at set times, and in a 

Proper atti- r 

tude toward special, holy tone ; and to be interpreted in 
a special way, different from that used re- 
garding any other book. This mode of isolation has 
borne its proper fruit. Led or forced to simulate 
emotions they had not had time to come by honestly, 
the children brought up on that theory developed an 
attitude toward the Bible which was partly aversion, 
partly apathy, and which was wholly unreal. I 
know of one girl, reared in a Christian home, who 
did not lack intelligence in other lines, who reached 
the ripe age of thirteen before she realized that the 
doings recorded in the Bible occurred on this earth, 
she having all along thought that they had transpired 
in heaven. Let no one fear that the Bible will be 
lowered or shaken by being treated in an every-day 
common-sensible fashion. Let us not fear to tell 
the truth about Bible characters. If some were 
rascals, say so, man-fashion, without fumbling or 
evasion. If the old Israelites attributed to their God 
commands that outrage our children's sense of justice 
and mercy, do not excuse that which is brutal, or 
attribute it to God, but rather explain how such 
things were the fruit of a rude age, point out the 
steps of growth, and the contrasts between the Law 
of Moses and the Gospel of Christ. And when the 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 157 

child asks the inevitable question, "Is it true ? " or 
"Is it fact or story ? " if you do not know, say so ; 
and if you can, add that this was a story the Israelitish 
mothers told their children, or that it is certainly a 
beautiful story, or that it doesn't seem to make very 
much difference whether it really happened or not, 
for we can easily see what it means. It is a fatal 
blunder to attempt to prop up the Bible by external 
aids. If the Bible is worthy of love and reverence, 
the child rightly taught will inevitably come to love 
and revere it. If you force reverence, or the sem- 
blance of love, you destroy that which must be at the 
root of both — the honest judgment, the personal 
liking, and the sense of reality. 

For the same reason I urge the looking at Jesus 
Christ first of all as a man. Let the child dwell on 
his manliness before dwelling- on his God- T „, . 

Jesus Chnst 

hood. If the child learns to like Jesus, the in the child- 
man, as a dear friend, he will be the more llfe ' 
ready to worship the Christ as the Son of God. This 
order seems to me essential. If you begin with the 
supernatural side, the natural side can never be 
quite so natural. But if you begin with the natural 
side, you will be in due time compelled to say with 
Thomas, " My Lord and my God. " There are ex- 
ceptional cases ; but even those not thus compelled 
to believe are certainly in far better case than if they 
had begun with formally accepting the Godhead of 
Christ and had never reached — and many never do 
reach — the human friendship of Jesus. 

And now let me distinctly set forth what I have 
not said or meant. I have not said or meant that 



158 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 

we should not accept that which we do not under*- 
stand. And I have not said, and do not 
intend to say, that we should not teach 
children anything they do not at the moment under- 
stand fully. I have not said that we should not con- 
form for a time, at least, to conventions into which we 
cannot at the time enter with the heart. And I have 
not said that the teacher, however determined to be, 
with Rossetti, "one of those whose little is their 
own, ' ' and determined to let his pupils stand upon 
the solid rock of their own sense of what is good and 
true and beautiful, shall not be respectful and even 
reverent toward that which has long been sacred to 
others, but which he has not yet grown into himself; 
and seek to inspire his pupils with a like spirit. 

You will observe that in discussing the teacher's 
preparation I have not mentioned lists of books to 
be read, or spoken of the teacher's need of becom- 
ing familiar with authorities and helps; with ancient 
manners, customs, and geography; with modern 
trades and occupations ; with pictures and poems ; 
with the principles of education and the practice of 
those who are masters of the art of teaching, — 
though I believe that the teachers' study of all these 
things should be thorough and constant. I have 
thought it a better plan, in treating a theme like this, 
to aim to set forth an ideal of good teaching, rather 
than to speak of many things a teacher should know 
in order to teach ; believing that we touch the springs 
of action better by giving a desire for the end than 
by pointing out means in detail, and that " He who 
loves flowers will find out all about soils." 



VII. 

THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE 
CHILD-MIND. 

By President G. Stanley Hall, D.D., of Clark University. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE VII. 

Study of Child-development. 
The child the type of the species. 
Difficulties of the Sunday-school. 
Child-evolution. 
Stages passed through. 
Necessity for this law of development. 
Child's religious evolution the same in manner. 
Illustrated by Fetish worship. 
And by Nature-love. 
And by Natural Religions in the world. 
Nature- study in the Sunday-school. 
Power of Nature in Primitive Religions. 
Natural religions, — study of, in the Sunday-schools. 
Personal application of Christ's Saving Grace best taught at Confir- 
mation Age. 
The Adolescent Period of Youth. 
Danger of neglect of these Principles at this time. 
James Stuart Mill's View. 
Adolescence and Conversion. 
Science and Sin. 

Awful results of Sin on the Conscience. 
Psychology and the Bible. 
Childhood the best period of life. 
Biology's Witness. 
Childhood the noblest humanity. 
Teaching best suited for the child-age, before adolescence. 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE 
CHILD-MIND. 

If I were a clergyman, as I wish, indeed, I might 
be for an hour, to speak upon this subject, and if I 
could take a text, it would be, "Suffer little chil- 
dren to come unto me : for of such is the kingdom 
of heaven. ' ' 

I shall undertake, as best I may, to outline some of 
the results of the recent movement for the study of 
the child nature, which bear upon the work of the 
Sunday-school, and which seem to me may be help- 
ful for all who may be superintendents or teachers in 
it. 

There has been, as many of you are aware, within 
the last decade, a general movement, that has spread 
throughout the civilized world, for studying gtndyof 
the mental and physical traits of childhood. CMld-de- 
Children are measured with the greatest ve opmei 
minuteness. Every dimension of the hand, the 
brain, the skull, the chest, has been minutely studied, 
in order to ascertain the rate of growth of the body, 
and the circumstances that must further and that 
must retard the growth. These studies are all made 
upon very many children, and the average is then 
computed, and has chief significance. 

161 



1 62 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

But it is of none of this that I wish to speak now, 
but rather of a still larger body of investigations 
upon the mental content and the emotional activities 
of childhood. 

And let me preface what I have to say, by the 
general conclusion of all these biological investiga- 
tions. It is that childhood is the very best period 
of human life; that then all human faculties are at 
their best; that it is the paradise from which growth 
is always more or less of a fall. The child represents 
the species, the general form of human nature. 
Adults are specialized in this, that, or the other direc- 
tion. Men, particularly, who are far more special- 
ized than women, have to sacrifice, always, part of 
their nature for the completer development of other 
parts. 

The modern conception, then, of childhood is 
that its later stages, at least, are almost always, in 
all modern civilizations, more or less of a decline, 
and that Wordsworth was right when he spoke of 
the child as coming from a far country, with partial 
forgetfulness. It is as if the old pre-existence theo- 
ries of the soul were more or less true. 

In all its activities, physiological and psychical, 
then, the child is nearer the type of the species, and 
has less of the limitations of the individual. 
the type of The doors of the prison-house have closed 
the species. U p 0n him, far less tightly than they have 
upon us. It used to be said, in the days when per- 
haps the recognition of the intuitive power of woman 
was at its very best, — seventy-five or a hundred years 
ago, in the time of Goethe, — that the woman's 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 163 

instinct was the surest of all compasses by which 
those who wished to go back to first principles and 
base their work on their study of human nature 
should act : — as Goethe says, ' ' das ewige weibliche, 
— "the eternally womanly." Woman's instincts 
are greater instincts, are of greater breadth and are 
less specialized, than man's. So that woman's 
instinct was thought to be, by these investigators of 
that time, the highest in the world. But we are 
gradually coming to recognise something that is still 
more generic, — namely, childhood at its best. It is 
the most truly and really divine thing in the world. 
It is the most complete and whole thing we have. 
So that the boundaries of the child's nature are so 
wide, its sympathies, its power of appreciation, its 
capacity to grasp, at least in a cursory and superficial 
way, something from all the environment of know- 
ledge or moral character that is about it, are so great, 
that we know that, in everything that is essential to 
high and holy and happy living, the boundaries of 
the child's nature are far more nearly coterminous 
with those of the race than are those of the adult, 
or even of the woman. 

The conditions under which the Sunday-school 
works are hard conditions — very hard. A little 
time, but once a week, perhaps, or twice ; Difficulties 
teachers that rarely, if ever, have any pro- oftheSun- 
fessional training, — and that, too, in this 
day when professional training in education is a real 
science; when the character of the professional 
teaching never stood so high and never was growing 
so rapidly. In that time the Sunday-school has, 



164 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

less than any other department in the whole educa- 
tional field, felt the influence, on the whole, of these 
unfolding movements. 

Then, besides that, we are suffering under the 
influence of the "Uniform-lesson System." It has 
done a great work in the world. It has brought 
into sympathy and rapport the great body of Bible- 
teachers in the world. But it has done its best work, 
and has now a limitation in so many places and 
ways, that those of us who are familiar with Sunday- 
school work, I think, will hesitate a good while 
before we are willing to say that those are not right 
who declare that its usefulness is at an end, and that 
we should supersede it by far more individual train- 
ing, in subject-matter and methods, even in the 
Infant Sunday-school. 

The true source of appeal in all matters educa- 
tional, then, is human nature and human need. So 
that all religion has done its great work in the world 
because it has rightly appreciated and correctly met 
the great and most crying needs of humanity. And 
so education is now making an appeal to first prin- 
ciples. It is going back and asking, by all the 
methods that it can command, What is the real nature 
of childhood, and What are the deeper interests of 
childhood ? What are its real capacities ? What 
kind of mental food does it need, in order to bring 
every power of mind and body to the fullest and best 
development of which each child is capable ? 

That is the work. The bond, especially in re- 
ligious work, should be a personal tie from the heart 
of every child to the heart of every teacher. We 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 165 

know that the Day-school suffers very much under 
the uniformity of the modern class-graded system, 
and we are now, in very many ways, trying, and 
successfully in many directions, to emancipate our- 
selves from the rigidity of this procrustean grade 
system, so that the school shall be a thing of rescue 
— a rescue not merely from sin, but a rescue from 
the calamity of mistaken vocations. To discover 
the thing that a child can do best is a work of 
rescue. It is a child-saving, a career-saving, an 
economizing kind of work — greater, perhaps, than 
any other kind of educational work that can be done. 
Now when we look at the child, what do we find ? 
We find this great result, which came with surprise 
to many of us as it slowly dawned, and as ohild- 
the hand mounted up and became so evolllti(m ' 
formidable that not one single person here present 
can look the facts in the face and get the common 
information that is now available, without accepting 
it. It is this : that the child normally represents the 
history of the human race. That it has, in its early 
stages, a great deal of the animal about it. There 
is a great deal in its physical and psychical nature 
that suggests the higher animals. We know that 
every child has at least 133 rudimentary organs in 
its body (so called), which are atrophied, and which 
suggest that something a little like what the evolu- 
tionists tell us must be true. Why is it, for instance, 
that a few months before birth I had an immense 
organ here, for breathing in the water — complete gills 
— which gradually transformed, so that soon after birth 
the upper part of them had been twisted around into 



1 66 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

the nostrils, the lower part had been turned around 
and grown into the vocal cords, another part had 
been spiralled around into the cochlea, or the organs 
of hearing ? Why is it that I was a gill-breathing 
animal at one time, suggesting aquatic life ? Why 
is it, too, that the infant has all the caudal appen- 
dages ? Why is it that we have the vermiform 
appendix, and why all these 133 different organs, 
of absolutely no use, but many of them a positive 
disadvantage in our human stage ? What do they 
mean ? They mean that we pass up the whole his- 
tory of animal life, and that from the time a few 
months before birth, up to maturity, every child 
Stages passed represents in his history every stage of ani- 
through. mal life, as repeated since the world began. 
You and I have all been a union of similar organs: 
those organs have divided, and those halves divided 
again, until at last it has appeared that we were 
going to be an invertebrate, then a protovertebrate, 
then a metazoan, then a vertebrate, and then one of 
the higher vertebrates, and then a quadrumanal, and 
then a bimanal creature, and finally a man, and 
then, perha_ps, a man of, high character. 

Of course the early stages are passed over with 
great rapidity. They are - telescoped into one 
another, so that it is with great difficulty that they 
can be detected. We have lived thousands — we 
don't know: possibly millions — of years in a day, 
an hour, perhaps a minute, in the earliest stages of 
our development. But something, we know not 
what, some unknown and inscrutable formative prin- 
ciple, has pushed us on and up through all the lower 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 167 

stages, and it has persevered until at last we have 
reached the highest of all — human organisms — and 
have developed even a brain and nervous system — 
that most marvellous of all material things : — four 
thousand million nerve-elements, on the average; 
every cell composed of scores of millions of mole- 
cules, and broken up into a number of scores of 
parts, invisible even to the microscope: — the brain, 
the only organ through which God has ever spoken 
to the world, or ever can; the mouthpiece of the 
Absolute, through which every revelation has come. 
All that has been developed in us in a few years 
from beginnings that, so far as any method of science 
can discern, are on a level with the lowest forms of 
animal life. So that there is a great deal of what 
might be described as the tadpole-tail function, if 
you will accept that familiar parable. I Necessity for 
sometimes used to ask my students how tMslaw - 
many of them believed that the tadpole's tail ever 
fell off when it became a frog; and most of them 
thought it did. But every naturalist knows that 
there never was a tadpole's tail in the world that fell 
off: and that is the point of all we have to say. 
Never a tadpole lost his tail. It was absorbed: and 
the very matter and blood that went to make tail was 
simply made over again into legs. And if the tad- 
pole's tail is cut off, then the legs never grow, and the 
frog is condemned to pass his life in a lower aquatic 
stage. He never becomes an amphibian, and never 
gets up on the land. That is the parable of the tad- 
pole's tail. There are plenty of others, with rudi- 
mentary histories that illustrate the same general 



1 68 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

law, which is that the lower organ has to be devel- 
oped, or else the higher, which supersedes it, will 
never grow. You may say, ' ' To develop the frog 
nature of this tadpole, I will clip off this tail, so that 
the energy will go into the legs and he will get 
mature a little earlier, and the legs will be strong. ' ' 
That is what we do in the training. We forget that 
Froebel was right when he said, " Every child 
must live out completely every complete stage of 
childhood, or he can never develop into complete 
maturity. ' ' So that when I say every child recapitu- 
lates the history of the race, I say that that must be 
taken as the cornerstone of the new pedagogy, in 
religion as in everything else. 

Now Christianity came in God's own appointed 
time. It came late in the history of the world: if 
scientists are right, very late. But why ? Because 
mankind was not ripe for it. And the child has to 
repeat a great many of these pre-Christian stages of 
evolution in its own life. 

One of the most striking and interesting results of 

modern psychological studies, or studies in the 

growth of the souls of children, consists in 
Child's ° . , i 1 t . 

Keiigious showing, with such overwhelming masses of 

Evolution. evidence, how every child repeats the his- 
tory of the race in its religious development. It is 
a fetich-worshipper. Every child that has a fair 
chance at life passes through the stage of being a 
fetich-worshipper. Examine the contents of a boy's 
pocket. You will find, very probably, a pretty 
stone, a bit of lead, a curious piece of coal or old 
junk iron or ore — a lot of these things ; a knot of 






THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 169 

wood with a curious spot in it — something that he 
has, perhaps, carried in his pocket for a long time. 
In severe weather it is wrapped up, so that it won't 
feel cold. It is taken with the child wherever he 
goes, so that it will have been to New York, Phila- 
delphia and Boston, and shared the child's experi- 
ences. The temperature is regulated for its benefit. 
And sometimes we find this fetich-worship surviving 
very curiously in different persons. I know a lady 
who has a string of spools that she played with as a 
baby. She can't go to sleep without that Fetich-wor- 
string of spools. She keeps it in her top shi V' 
bureau drawer, and, whenever she is specially tired, 
sits down and gets it out and takes a good look at 
it, and is refreshed and rested thereby. That is 
simply an exceptional survival of the fetichism that 
is common to all children. Some toy, some utterly 
unconsidered trifle, is, by an instinct, almost always 
frowned upon and therefore somewhat secreted and 
never mentioned to adults, — but by an instinct that 
is almost universal in childhood, some insignificant 
trifle is invested with many of the attributes of per- 
sonality. It has something in it that corresponds 
with something or other in the soul of the child. 

And so it goes on up to higher and higher stages. 
Who has not seen the passionate love of children 
for particular flowers ? How many children in the 
country find a chance to know enough of Nature to 
feel its real influences and to learn that 

1 1 • 1 • 1 r i- • c Illustrated 

Nature-love which is the first religion ot byNatnre- 
every race that has existed in the world ? love " 
Who has not seen cases of this Nature-love, very 



170 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

obvious ? The little girl, perhaps, talking to the 
flowers, thinking they speak to her ; saying her pray- 
ers to them, wishing and hoping they won't be cold, 
and covering them up, not to save them from wilt- 
ing, nor because there is any danger of frost, but 
that they may feel the warmth she wishes. She 
imagines she hears voices whispering in the 
trees. 

Every child is dwarfed in some function of his 
soul, who has not been brought in contact with 
animal life: and the more of it, the better. ' The 
animal soul is described by some people as the 
human soul without the inspiration. Suppose, for 
instance, that a child know r s a peacock — has seen it 
strut and spread its feathers. Suppose it finds a 
parable in which that bird is referred to. It is 
familiar with the qualities that are implied in the 
human life. We say of a lady, " She is a parable: 
she is a peacock. ' ' And so all other animals are 
psychological specimens, and the first school of 
human nature, that precedes all others, is to know 
them! That is why yEsop and all these many fables 
have had such far-wrought influence on the childish 
soul, as vehicles by which morals, and sometimes 
even religion itself, are taught. Children talk to 
their pets, and believe they are interested. They 
personify them, as you know. They think they go 
to Heaven with them. They believe the doll speaks, 
and shares all their own sympathies. I know a little 
girl who learned French in order to talk to the 
French doll that her mother brought her from Paris, 
so strong was the doll passion, which usually de- 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 171 

velops in her at about the age of eight or nine years, 
in the average child. 

And when you pass up higher, you find these 
natural religions there manifesting themselves. A 
son of a friend of mine, who lives in Washington — a 
boy about four — some two or three years ago, when 
I was visiting this friend, was in the back Natural 
door of the house, as the full moon was Religion, 
rising : and as I sat there, I overheard him saying 
something like this: " Moon, come down and speak 
to Henny. Good moon, Henny love you." It 
may not have been exactly those words, but in that 
childish way addressing the moon — a kind of primi- 
tive prayer or orison, or something of that sort. 
And I believe that something very deep and striking 
and important was taking place between that child's 
soul and the moon. 

We forget that many people have had no higher 
religion than this. For instance, Socrates, in his 
trial, says, before his judges, to Miletus, his chief 
accuser, " O Miletus, with all your rage against me, 
you surely would not go so far as to say that I do 
not believe that the sun and moon are the supreme 
gods in this universe. ' ' Nobody would say that. 
Of course he didn't. Every Greek believed that the 
sun and moon were the supreme deities, and said 
their prayers to them. And some of the gods and 
goddesses, as you know, had some of the most beauti- 
ful temples that ever were reared in the world, as 
products of the religious sentiment. And so on, 
from the rudest kind of fetich-worship — from the 
simple stone ebenezer. The Palestine Exploration 



172 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

people tell us that the chief thing they find there is 
the stone set up — one stone on another — by the 
primitive population, perhaps not simply because 
they were idols of stone, as some people say. Per- 
haps there was a good deal of symbolism, and they 
represented something, as they certainly do in all 
higher forms of idolatry — all through the worship of 
inanimate objects, up to the worship of sun and 
moon and stars, which have implanted a sentiment 
so deep in man, that one of the deepest thinkers we 
have ever had declared that the undevout astronomer 
was mad. From the lowest to the highest, we see 
the religious effect of nature: and it has first place, 
and it must have; for it is detrimental, it is cutting 
off the tadpole's tail, to try to teach the higher forms 
of religious sentiment without the child having had 
a good radical experience with the lower forms. It 
is assuming that we can skip stages in human evolu- 
tion, which Nature's stern decree makes it impossible 
for us ever to pass by. We must always pass 
through them all. 

When we come to ask the practical question, 
whether or not we would teach Nature in the Sun- 
Nawstudy day-school, we may well pause: but for 
in the Sun- myself, I am quite convinced of the wis- 
dom of two recent Sunday-school pro- 
grammes that I have seen, which give a place for 
teaching Nature, as from the religious standpoint. 
There is nothing that stimulates the child sentiment 
of awe, reverence, and dependence — sentiments which 
all religious philosophy now agrees in making the 
basis of religion in the soul — there is nothing that 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 173 

teaches these sentiments, stimulates them, causes 
them to grow, like a judicious course of Nature-study. 
Of course, I don't mean the study with the micro- 
scope, or the technique of names or nomenclature, 
but I mean the poetic aspect of nature, the spontane- 
ous sentiment that springs up in every warm-hearted 
child when coming in contact with nature. On a 
summer's day, take a group of children into the 
woods, and you find that, although in the meadow 
and open land they may have been jolly and running 
and climbing, the moment they enter the forest there 
is a hush. They feel a certain sort of awe in the 
gloom and sombreness of a quiet summer forest. 
That sentiment, Professor Zeller tells us — and he is, 
perhaps, the most competent man to speak on that 
subject — Professor Zeller, in his " History of the 
Religious Sentiment among the Ancient Romans," 
says that that sentiment of awe in the presence of 
the forest was the only religious sentiment that the 
ancient Romans ever developed — at the root of all 
the religion they ever had. And we know, in the 
latter part of the Roman Empire, it was at least rich 
enough to produce in their people a rank growth 
of superstitions, such as the world has never seen. 
And the child should have a chance to develop that 
at its proper time, in order that the sentiments on 
which the higher forms of religion rest, and without 
which every kind of religious development is defec- 
tive, may come to their highest perfection. 

When we look over the history of savage religions 
and primitive religions, especially the ethnic re- 
ligions, we find that there is hardly one single ob- 



174 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

ject in all nature that has not been worshipped by 
It p . some savage race. Max Miiller tells us 
Primitive that it would be difficult to find anything 
eigions. sQ re p U i s } ve> so insignificant, so vulgar, 
even, that it had not been made by some race, 
somewhere, the object of superstitious and supreme 
worship. And we know that in the three thousand 
deities of the Arians almost every kind of natural 
object was somehow represented and personified. 
Of course, particularly the sky. We have plenty of 
sky-worshippers to-day. The clouds — what would 
become of the imagination if it were not for the 
clouds ? The child in the country gazes at them, 
and he forms palaces, and sails, wild scenes of Judg- 
ment day, crowds of angels : he sees great ships, and 
flags — everything that can be conceived of: and the 
clouds have had an immense influence in giving a 
sense of reality to something up above us. I am 
inclined to agree with M. Renan, who tells us that 
the clouds, and thunder, and mountains, each had 
more to do than any other one factor, he thinks, in 
shaping the religious conceptions of the ancient 
Hebrews. But however that may be, no one who 
knows children can doubt that they have a very deep 
and instinctive love and reverence for objects in 
Nature, and that they do pass through a great many 
more of these ancient idolatrous stages than we 
know, and the dictum of modern science is that these 
have their place; these instincts must be developed. 
The objects are more tangible, they are more con- 
stant. And just as that child is unfortunate who has 
never had a mother to watch over it until it grew to 






THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 175 

years of maturity : especially that infant is unfortunate 
who has not been able to gaze into its mother's eyes, 
and to develop toward her precisely those sentiments 
of reverence and love and dependence which later, 
turned toward God, constitute so much of the 
essence of religion, just so, the child who has not 
had access to Nature and has not felt her uplifting 
power is liable to build his religious life upon the 
sand, because it has not the solid foundations in the 
primeval life of the human soul to rest upon. 

Of course this is only one fact. We have to-day 
a great many schemes of instruction from the Bible. 
I had one come to me yesterday, and brought it 
down on the train, and looked it over. It Natural re- 
is very liberal — more liberal than almost jfgJ2^ T _ 
any that I have seen. It recognises Nature- schools. 
worship at the beginning of the course, and at the 
end of the course. It insists upon some training in 
ethnic religions — in other religions than Christianity. 
It accepts as rather fundamental the dictum that, 
just as philologists tell us that he who knows only 
one language really knows none, because he does 
not know it comparatively, and does not know the 
derivation of words, just so it is true that he who 
knows but one religion really knows none adequately. 
So that it has even introduced something about Bud- 
dhism, and two or three other of the higher ethnic 
religions, at the latter part of this course. I do not 
know what the justification of that might be. Per- 
haps we may question it. But I think there can be 
no hesitation whatever in insisting that the mytho- 
pceic and sentimental aspect of Nature, and some of 



176 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD- MIND. 

its great facts, should be taught to children in the 
Sunday-school in a way to bring out natural religion 
— all there is of it — to make the most and the best of 
it, because that is the best foundation on which to 
build the higher structure of Christianity. 

It seems to me we cannot say very much, perhaps, 
upon the order of Bible-study. We have it in these 
various programmes, sometimes beginning 
o/tJrKbie. m ^ e m iddle and going both ways, some- 
times beginning with the ancient heroes in 
the Pentateuch, sometimes beginning with the New 
Testament and working backward. But it does seem 
to me that the Bible, certainly the most consummate 
text-book in psychology that the world has ever 
seen, not only knows and touches the human heart 
at deeper and more points than any other, but that 
the order of its books, in the main, is the most 
pedagogic. It begins with the most majestic sweep, 
and gives us a background of the universe. To me, 
as an educator and psychologist, that question is not 
of so much consequence, because the main point is 
to teach the dependence of all things upon God. 
Criticism has its place, the scientific estimate has its 
place, but not in the Sunday-school. The Sunday- 
school is to edify, it is to cultivate the heart and the 
feelings, out of which the intellect springs, of which 
( the intellect is only a sort of dried specimen, so to 
1 speak. The heart, in which we live, which is the 
largest thing in us, is to be educated. The Sunday- 
school is to educate the emotional and the instinctive 
nature, and is not for the training of the reason, ex- 
cept incidentally, so far as it may be made to min- 






THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT Of THE CHILD-MIND. 177 

ister to this nature. In that respect it seems to me 
it differs very largely from the Day-school. 

If this order, in general, be followed, that would 
bring the stress of teaching Christianity, from the 
New Testament, a little later than we put 
it. And while I would by no means JjjJ^rtUm 
advocate, as some have lately done, that of Christ's 
the child be kept in ignorance of Chris- ^taughtf 6 
tianity until he reaches the age of twelve or a * Oonfirma- 
fifteen, until the dawn of that transforma- 
tion of adolescence which takes the child out of his 
own individuality and makes him a member of the 
race, yet I am entirely convinced that if we wish to 
work with Nature, and not against her, it is necessary 
that the chief stress of the New Testament teaching, 
and the chief personal application of the experience 
and the saving work of Christ, be applied not much 
earlier than the decade in which the Episcopal 
Church confirms, than the time when the Roman 
Catholic and the Lutheran churches confirm, than 
the time when the very careful statistics in the Pres- 
byterian and the Methodist and the Baptist and the 
Congregational churches show that most conversions 
take place, with children twelve or thirteen or there- 
abouts, until the beginning of this transformation. 
Nature indicates there the necessity of new and larger 
views, the necessity of regenerative processes, be- 
cause then the child's whole nature is turned about. 
It has lived for self until then, and properly. For the 
most part, it is necessary. It is necessary, rather, 
that the child up to that period should grow in body, 
soul, and strength, and get knowledge; that it should 



178 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

be done for. But here is a great break — the break 
when most children leave school for good. The 
average age of leaving school in New York, Boston, 
Chicago, and St. Louis is just about thirteen or four- 
teen years, or thereabouts. It is just about the time 
when Nature decrees a break, when children can 
support themselves, and there is a tendency to run 
away, because there is the point where the genera- 
tions break off a little from each other, as it would 
seem. 

But it is especially the time of life when the 
thoughts of young man and maiden begin to turn to 
other things than self. The great instincts of 
altruism begin to be felt, and to transform the soul, 
and far off and dimly, at first, looms up the great 
conception that life is, after all, not to be lived for 
self, but for others, and the instinct of subordination, 
The Adoles- °^ sacr ifi ce > °f being ready to die for what 
cent Period one would live for, begins then, and if life 
is complete, if people do not stop their 
mental growth, i( they are not, by some accident 
of education or environment or heredity, condemned 
to live their lives out upon a plane far lower than 
Nature intended them to be lived, — if none of these 
things occur, and they come to complete maturity, 
then altruism has its complete work, and sacrifice 
and work and service are a passion, — not only a 
duty, but a passion and joy. And that is the 
essence of religion, that is its work in the human 
soul, to subordinate self, and to make the life of 
the race, and the larger life of God, have supreme 
dominion over the heart. Love is the greatest thing 



THE' RELIGIOUS CONTENT OP THE CHILD-MIND. 179 

in the world, and to fix it on the greatest objects in 
the world is the end and aim of Education: and 
this comes chiefly at adolescence. It begins then. 
Children are more animal than we have thought 
them to be. We must think more of animals than 
we thought. They are more of savages than we 
thought them to be. We must have a larger esti- 
mate of savage life than we had, if we are to under- 
stand them aright. They come to their highest 
intuitive development in a very few years, and the 
dawn of this critical period, and the time for the con- 
summating and completing of religious education, is 
then. I believe that in all our Sunday-schools the 
consummate care of the superintendent and the 
teacher and the Rector should be bent not so much 
upon the lower classes, important as they are, but 
upon the classes of boys who are in early teens, and 
perhaps a little later, who are coming into maturity, 
and have no guide, almost nothing in the school, 
almost nothing in their environment, to really develop 
and cultivate and elevate this great sentiment of love, 
than which nothing is more liable to go astray and 
become perverse ; than which, if it is perverted, noth- 
ing works greater havoc in the soul and the body. 
To elevate and expand this, so it shall take hold of 
what is eternally good, true, and beautiful — that is 
the time, and that is the immortal work of the 
Sunday-school teacher. 

To love and to be interested most in those things 
that are most worthy of love and of interest — that is 
the end of life: and religion is the only thing, in all 
this vast mass of cultures that our curriculums are 



i So THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

trying to train in so many ways — religion is the only 
thing that can ever lead us to that consummation. 
I think that in some of our communions we have 
Danger of been premature; we have sought for too 
theUprin- s P ee dy results. A great many have sought 
ciples. to reap where they had not sown. They 

have endeavoured to pick open the bud before it was 
ready to blossom of itself. We have even revival 
sermons, I believe, still, to children; and one of 
these revivalists was kind enough to send me a list of 
his conversions, and I figured up over four thousand 
of them, and found that the average of the children 
he had converted was nine years. Now whether or 
not so early an age is the age at which the consum- 
mate effect of religious training ought to be aimed at, 
I question — whether the soul is expanded enough. 
We know what the results of precocity are. If chil- 
dren's minds are brought in contact with great things 
that they cannot grapple, there is a kind of inocula- 
tion that takes place. They are vaccinated. They 
have the chicken-pox form, instead of the severe 
form, and they are prevented from taking a deeper 
and more permanent transforming interest in these 
things: and I am very strongly persuaded, for one, 
that while a great deal of good may be done in many 
cases, there is a very grave danger in bringing home 
the supremest questions of religion to young people 
until those instincts and those passions are developed, 
which are stronger than any other in life, and which, 
if misguided, may lead to destruction. When those 
are unfolded, they need every restraint that religion 
can possibly afford, and they should receive the 






THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. iSl 

strongest and the best training. There should be 
no course of training that makes possible rubbing 
the bloom off, or dulling the effect of all these, but 
in their pristine power they should be applied when 
they are most necessary to check passion and to 
subdue rampant personality and selfishness, and to 
civilize and humanize the soul. 

I am inclined to think that John Stuart Mill said 
a rather good thing about this. He said that teach- 
ing children to be good too early was a little like 
early rising. People who were very early j g j^, 
risers, he said, in the morning, were quite View, 
apt to be very proud of it all the forenoon, and then 
rather stupid in the afternoon, and very uninteresting 
in the evening. And I am inclined to think that 
something of that occurs in those who wake up too 
early to religious truths. They may be very interest- 
ing as precocious children or boy prodigies, possibly; 
but I think they grow uninteresting and sterile in the 
afternoon of life, and in them often the power and 
stress of religion somehow loses its force. It does 
not grow with the years and strengthen with their 
strength, as it really ought to do. 

Then — to leave this — there is another point of 
view which must not be overlooked. Science in 
many ways is coming to reaffirm many of Adolescenc 
the old principles of religion. Take this and Conver- 
of conversion. There are a great many 
people who think that there is not much in it, that 
Confirmation, and so on, do not mean very much. 
There is great reason to believe that the next five 
years will see a revolution of sentiment in all the 



1 82 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

churches, on this subject; that it will come to us 
from science, which will show that Nature has a real 
regeneration in the soul at this time ; that the in- 
terpreting faculties, the imagination, and the senti- 
ments are immensely quickened. There is a vast 
new literature on this subject of adolescence. It 
shows that mankind becomes different in a very few 
years. Stature increases. Boys begin to grow 
especially at twelve, and grow for a few years and 
then stop. They grow in their weight; their brains 
develop in a remarkable way. Their muscular 
strength increases, new interests, new passions arise; 
new dangers, of course; and it is the time of greatest 
prevalence in the line of crime. Later statistics 
show that before the close of the years of adolescence 
most of the crimes are committed — not the deepest 
and darkest crimes, but the most. So that it seems 
as though good and evil struggle together for the 
mastery of the human soul at no other time of life so 
much as at this time. 

All we know, then, of this period seems to indi- 
cate that it is a kind of regeneration, of the same 
sort which takes place in the soul, and that religion, 
in formulating it, has simply been true to Nature, 
giving it its crown of development. 

So, too, with regard to sin. I am very strongly 
persuaded that not many years will pass before we 
Science and shall have from science a very strong plea 
Sm ' for more preaching of sin from the pulpit. 

I say this with great diffidence, and I hardly meant 
to put it quite so strongly, but I will not go back 
now, for I very rarely get an opportunity to talk 



THE HELIGIOUS CONTENT OP THE CHILD-MIND. 183 

back from the pulpit; my place is in the pews. But 
I do feel very strongly persuaded that we ought 
to have a little of the old-fashioned doctrine of sin 
preached. Augustine preached it. The Church 
deifies some of our good Calvinistic friends for 
preaching it. We do not hear so very much of it: 
but it is a dreadful thing. Read a book like Nordau's 
"Degeneration." Read the modern studies in 
criminology that are being made. Read the litera- 
ture that is abroad, stamped with the marks of 
human decadence. Look at life as you see it. Is 
not sin a real thing ? 

One of my students investigated with great labour, 
a while ago, and culled from the newspapers various 
advertisements that are circulated in all the papers 
of this country, to young men, warning them against 
the errors of youth, and adding that they could be 
cured with so many bottles, at so much, perhaps. 
And he found that there were now no less than 
seven of these great societies — publishing syndicates, 
if you please — for the circulation of the answers to 
these advertisements. The business is conducted in 
this way. Scare advertisements are sent out. Un- 
wary youth write, asking questions. These AwMresnlt8 
young men, most of whom are normal, are of sin on Con- 
instructed to send in their complaints. 
They write their letters with their hearts' blood. 
I have read them. I bought a thousand at the 
syndicate price, and looked them over. The most 
awful letters that I ever read — because most of 
them, as I say, were ingenuous young men, and 
though perfectly normal, were made to think, 



l3 4 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

through the neglect of their parents and their 
teachers, that they were all wrong and corrupt, and 
they are made to buy these nostrums and to eat out 
their own soul and become cankered by a sense of 
sin they ought not to feel, in very many cases. It 
is most fearful reading. We estimated the number 
of these letters. We know what they cost. They 
cost twenty-five dollars a thousand the first time, the 
second time twenty dollars, and so on until they 
have been sold five times — because the young man 
will perhaps buy of the fifth different company, and 
the fifth time the syndicate price is five dollars a 
thousand for those letters, written with the utmost 
secrecy by young men, many of them from our best 
families. And there are now on sale such letters 
from four and a half million young men in this 
country, that can be bought at those prices. 

Now don't tell me that sin is not a real thing, that 
it does not need to be preached. It is sin shown, 
not so much in the acts, as in the consciences of these 
young men. It is the power exercised over them 
by their delusive impressions of their own acts, by 
reason of the tendencies which exist in their hearts, 
and in their nature, which need right guidance. 
The recent studies from many points — studies in 
psychology, studies of the emotions, of the brain, of 
the whole nervous system, with many experiments 
Psychology con ducted in the laboratory, show, in a far 
and the more minute way than has ever been shown 

before, that there is a very close rapport 
between psychology and the Bible— a rapport which 
amounts to sympathy, and which perhaps is going to 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 185 

amount almost to identity. This is to be the point 
of contact between science and religion, in that day 
which is speedily coming. And I believe we shall 
realize that there has been a vast amount of energy 
lost because we have thought that the primary reve- 
lation of God in His works could be set over against 
the revelation which God has made to us in His 
holy word. The two are one. They reinforce each 
other. All the essentials of the two are implied in 
each. And I am myself hopeful enough to believe 
that when this old view shall be ended, and that 
when this sad chasm between them, in which so 
many unsightly and rank weeds have grown up, is 
closed, out of a full heart we shall be able to ex- 
press some such sentiment as Daniel Webster did, 
in that famous speech of his, you remember, which 
I might almost parody by saying, " When our eyes 
shall behold for the last time, perhaps, the sun of 
this century, or the sun of the next decade, they will 
not see him shining upon a culture divorced, broken, 
but rather upon the two great wings of human in- 
terest, Science and Religion, the standards of both 
high advanced, and bearing no such miserable 
inquiry as ' What is Science worth ? ' or those other 
words of delusion and folly, ' Religion first, and 
Science afterwards ' : but everywhere men will unite 
in feeling that the two are one and inseparable." 

And when it comes, we shall realize what an im- 
mense amount of energy has been los„, and how 
much we have faltered in our upward strivings in 
religious work, because we have been intimidated by 
science. The higher ranges of science, that deal 



iS6 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

with the human soul, reinforce every one of the great 
fundamental tables of the Bible. And it is high 
time that we recognise this, and adopt all that it 
can give us into the Sunday-school and the pul- 
pit. 

I must add one final thought. It is almost ex- 
actly the thought with which I began. 

The best period in life is childhood — the best 
period of human life. It is the richest and the 
Childhood largest. It has most sympathies, most 
Lriodof delusions, most capacities, most pleasures, 
Life- between birth and complete maturity, 

which we now believe does not occur till well on in 
the twenties, and perhaps even later, as the best 
authorities tell us — but .in the growing period of life 
is found almost all that makes life worth the living. 

Biology tells us that every cell and tissue of the 
human body is simply a servant of those minute pro- 
ductive elements which pass on the sacred torch of 
Biology's life from one generation to another. They 
witness. are immortal. We are all literally physical 
parts of our parents, back, back to Adam. The 
primitive cell divides, the pieces divide again ; finally 
two collide, and become two organs. There is no 
death, there is no corpse. That is the way in which 
life began. There was physical immortality. But 
later organs were necessary for special purposes, and 
it was with specialization that death began. Biol- 
ogists describe this origin of death in the world 
thus: " It is the lower functions, the more special- 
ized, that die: but that immortal part that still repre- 
sents and passes on this sacred torch of life to the 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 187 

further generations — that is the master tissue that 
everything else serves. ' ' 

And so of childhood, — we may say that childhood 
represents, often, the noblest humanity. It is the 
human nature at its very best, highest and fullest and 
richest, before sin has very deeply entered — for the 
child, before the teens, cannot commit any so very 
grievous sin — nothing compared to the temptations 
that assail it later in life. Wordsworth 

• 1 tt i-i- 11 1 Childhood 

was right. He was speaking literally, and the noblest 
biology reinforces him in all those glorious numamt y' 
ascriptions of transcendent insight to the human 
child's soul. It does not reason, it can hardly walk 
in thought, but its intuitions are subtle. There is not 
a thing in the environment to which it is not respon- 
sive. It is like a seed which is in the soil. Perhaps 
the sunlight does not shine directly upon it, but 
there is not a ray over it, not a drop of moisture 
above it, that does not refresh it in every particle 
of its being, and does not quicken it to new life. 
Is it so with the soul of the child ? It is, as I said, 
the soul of the race. It is generic, it is complete. 
There have been none of the necessary subtractions. 
And civilization is measured by a new standard. 
The Church, the home, the school, are good only 
so far as they are means of bringing human nature 
to a fuller and completer maturity. That is the 
highest thing to be gained — to develop the race on 
and up, and thus evolution always proceeds. It 
starts off from childhood. To bring to maturity is 
to keep young, to carry childhood into old age, and 
keep it green, so that there shall be no decadence, 



1 88 THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 

and old age shall not be repulsive, as it often is. 
The best possible test of every human culture is 
whether or not it can preserve that curious and 
unique and divine freshness of soul that is the 
peculiar badge and characteristic of childhood — 
whether it keeps us eternally young. That is genius. 
Genius is nothing but childhood perpetuated into old 
age. And the best, the highest service that can 
possibly be rendered is the service and the ministry 
to childhood. 

The Roman Catholic Church is waking up upon 
this subject. I heard, in France, this last summer, 
some very remarkable things about a new movement 
r,, ,. in this direction, which I wish to know 

Teaching ' 

best for more about. And I think our churches 

children. . •• i r 

are coming to realize now as never before, 
that it is a far higher thing, because it does more 
good, to really reach children before they are 
highly matured, than to preach and work for par- 
ents. Not but that that work is needed sadly 
enough, but it requires higher talent, greater 
capacity, more genius, more full mastery of know- 
ledge, to teach children. The true teacher can go 
through the highest and most consummate mastery 
of expert subjects, and make them interesting to a 
little child. Any one who ever saw Professor 
Huxley talk to his own children would realize that 
there was not a thing that that great mind knew in 
science, that he could not make fascinating to the 
little child. And so in religion. Mastery in the 
knowledge of religion, sympathy with Christ, that 
makes us really interested in His mind and will, is 



THE RELIGIOUS CONTENT OF THE CHILD-MIND. 189 

best tested by capacity to lead and minister to child- 
hood. 

So that the child is leading us again, as never 
before. And if some methods of thought change in 
the world, if some of us lose a little confidence in 
the ideas that have guided us hitherto, there is one 
test that is sure, because it comes right up from the 
heart of Nature, and is the criterion by which every 
other truth soever in the world must forever be 
tested : whether or not it ministers to the more com- 
plete growth and maturity of childhood. 



VIII. 

THE USE OF BIOGRAPHY IN RELI- 
GIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

By Professor Frank Morton McMurry, Ph.D., Professor 

of "The Theory of Teaching," in Teachers College, 

Columbia University. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE VIII. 

The two Fundamental Principles of all Instruction. 
Law controls all kinds of Instruction. 
Object of Instruction is to develop Permanent Interest. 
Importance of Biography in Religious Instruction. 
Depends on our aspect of the Bible. 
Decision important in Day-schools. 
Bible Instruction primarily History. 
Selected Summary of Biographical Bible Instruction. 
Literature and underlying Truths not excluded. 
Illustrations. 

Yet History the Groundwork. 
Reason for Biographical Treatment of the Bible. 
Child uses Personification. 

Hence even Geography taught by Personification. 
Also History, Nature-study, and Science as welL 
Why does Biography interest ? 

Because it gives Facts connectedly. 

Hence close Relation needed between Lessons. 
Difficulties in Sunday-school Lessons. 
Because Biography is Concrete. 

Literature accepts this Principle. 
Sunday-schools ignore it. 

Abuse illustrated by Story of "The Match Girl." 
Proper Ratio of Concrete to Abstract, io : i. 
Hence Instruction should be mainly by Narrative. 
Biography forms good groundwork for other Facts. 
Also helpful in Reviews. 
Good basis for Examinations of Teachers. 
Age best suited for Study of Biography. 
All Teachers deal best with pupils by using Facts. 



THE USE OF BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS 
INSTRUCTION. 

SOME statement of fundamental principles is first 
necessary, as a basis for the remarks that 
are to follow. I desire, therefore, to men- mental Prin- 
tion two such guiding thoughts. cl P leSi 

In the first place, law prevails in religious teach- 
ing, as in other kinds of instruction. We know that, 
in the physical world, the man who T T 

I. Law coji- 

opposes himself to natural law invariably trola all 
suffers, no matter what his intentions may Inst ™ cti(m ' 
be. We know also that in the ordinary field of in- 
struction we are subject to Avhat is called ' < psychical 
law. ' ' He who follows that law meets with excellent 
results, and, to the extent that any one ignores it, 
he meets with bad results. Sometimes there is a 
tendency, in the field of religion, to feel that the 
situation there is different; that, if teachers mean 
well, whether they possess proper knowledge or not, 
good results are somehow assured. There is no 
warrant, however, for believing that the Lord will 
interfere with law more in this case than in the 
others. This is one of the presuppositions for our 
later argument. 

193 



194 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

In the second place, what we are aiming at 

primarily in religious instruction is the development 

of a permanent interest in religious facts. 

to develop To be sure, we often aim at knowledge, a 

permanent knowledge of religious truth, and of the 

Interest. . 

historical facts contained in the Bible. But 
in the Sunday-school, as in the Day-school, we are 
growing more and more inclined to accept an inter- 
ested attitude of mind as the largest immediate end 
to work for. If the instructor brings about a proper 
attitude toward the Bible, namely, that of deep in- 
terest, he has the best guarantee of future thinking, 
feeling, and acting along that line. No matter how 
much knowledge one may possess, it may easily lie 
dead, a stored, unused capital; but it must be pre- 
sented in a certain skilful manner in order to awaken 
permanent interest; it is therefore merely a means 
to an end rather than the highest immediate end in 
itself. 

There, then, are my two fundamental presupposi- 
tions. It is especially important to remember the 
Onriove latter, since it will directly influence the 
based on later discussion. The thought might be 
ow e ge. wor( j e( ] differently by saying that we are 
aiming at love, — a religious love — as our highest 
direct object. Of course this object is based upon 
knowledge, for clear ideas must be the basis of most 
permanent interests. But since we can impart a fair 
degree of knowledge without arousing a love — and 
in fact it is very often done — we must fix the larger 
purpose in mind and hold it before us continually. 
Knowledge does not necessarily include love; but 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 195 

love for religious thought includes knowledge to a 
fair degree and is an outgrowth from it. The one is 
larger than the other, and guarantees far more for 
the future. Any thoughtful normal-school teacher 
will admit that what he most cares to develop among 
young teachers is a love for teaching, rather than a 
knowledge about teaching. In making this asser- 
tion, therefore, about the worth of interest as a 
teaching aim, I am in full harmony with those 
engaged in the professional training of teachers. 

Our first problem for consideration is this : "To 
what extent is biography a subject of im- importance 
portance in Sunday-school Instruction ? " ? f Biography 

ib religious 

Is it merely a matter that affects method ? instruction. 
Or does its influence extend much farther ? 

The answer depends entirely upon our conception 
of the Bible. If the Sacred Book is primarily litera- 
ture, in distinction from history; biography De endson 
cannot play a prominent part in its teach- our aspect 
ing. Or if it deals mainly with abstract 
religious truths pertaining to religious life, biography 
cannot be of great importance in Sunday-school 
instruction. On the other hand, if the Bible is con- 
ceived of, as containing principally religious history, 
biography can prove of great influence. 

It is particularly important that this problem be 
solved before we proceed further. In the Day- 
school, it is necessary that the teacher know , , 

. . . Decision 1m- 

in every recitation whether he is giving in- p0 rtantin 
struction primarily in early reading, litera- Day-schools. 
ture, history, or in some other study. Instructors 
in normal schools find that young teachers commit 



I9 6 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

one of their gravest errors at this point; for when 
one is not quite sure as to what his subject is, he 
fails to grasp his principal points fully enough to 
separate them clearly from all others. He is then 
in danger of drifting from thought to thought, and 
not accomplishing a definite piece of work. The 
proper state is reached when the teacher can say: 
" It is this and not something else; and only such 
subject-matter will be admitted into the recitation as 
will contribute to this one end. " I make no attempt 
to prove this statement, at present, owing to lack of 
time ; I merely assert that, if a teacher will keep his 
bearings and accomplish ends, he must carry clearly 
in mind the nature of each of his studies, and admit 
only such matter as is in accord with it. Applying 
this thought to the Sunday-school : if the Bible is 
at one time history, at another literature, and at a 
third abstract religious truth, the teacher is in 
danger of shifting from one to the other, and pursu- 
ing no definite purpose. 

Let me say, without argument, that I conceive of 

Bible instruction as concerned primarily with history. 

I do not dare assert that most of the Bible 

Bible In- . _ . , . , . 

stmction is history ; but so far as the presentation of 
primarily jj- s subject-matter to children is concerned, 

History. J 

I believe that most good can be accom- 
plished by working principally with the historical 
portions. I therefore map out for myself a few of the 
great characters for study. 

Starting with the Patriarchs, I should choose 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, Moses and 
Joshua; the Judges would follow, and then would 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 197 

come the Kings, especially Saul, David, and Solo- 
mon. In the New Testament, the prin- 
cipal topics would be the Life of Christ, Selected 

* * summary. 

with His Disciples, and that of St. Paul. 
This is a very brief summary of the selections, if we 
conceive of the Bible as containing for children 
primarily history, and that biographical history. 
We see that in determining the use of biography in 
religious teaching, we are first compelled to take 
some position in regard to the nature of the Bible 
content. Then, if it is chiefly history, we must 
decide whether it shall be biography or race-history; 
and if the latter, whether it shall be a simple narra- 
tive of the principal events in the development of 
the Jewish race, or rather the historical growth of a 
few great ideas, to which the race-development itself 
would be quite subordinate. 

Although, as already stated, I am considering the 
Bible to be history and have chosen to present it in 
biographical form, these facts do not by 

1 \ 11 1 i- j Literature 

any means exclude all the literature and andunder- 
the abstract truths from the attention of lyiagfaaths 

not excluded. 

children. The many events contained in 
the biographies need to be interpreted in some 
manner; that is, they must lead up to important, 
generalizations of some kind. These would be the 
great religious truths that the Bible contains; and 
these truths are often presented in an especially 
attractive form, either in single verses or in whole 
chapters, the literature itself need not be neglected. 
Suppose, for example, that we are treating the Story 
of Joseph. The early part of it suggests numerous 



198 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

verses. His early treatment by his brothers calls to 
mind first St. John xv. : ' ' Whosoever hateth 

Illustrations. a . ,, „„ , 

his brother is a murderer. When the 

children picture him in the pit, they can recall 
several verses to comfort him. They should answer 
in Scripture, when asked, what Commandments his 
brothers had broken. The relation between the 
historical incidents recited and the great Bible truths 
can further be emphasized by calling up in this con- 
nection Gal. vi. 7: " Whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap " ; Heb. xii. 6: " Whom the Lord 
loveth, Hechasteneth " ; Prov. xxviii. 13 : " He that 
covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whosoever 
confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." 
These are some of the verses that could well be used 
to express central thoughts connected with the Story 
of Joseph. Some of the Psalms and some selections 
from other literature might also express underlying 
thoughts of this historical narrative. 

Thus it is plain that in arranging for the Bible in- 
struction of children to be historical, much room is 

provided for Bible literature and abstract 
Yet History .. . , -r> 1 • 1 n 

the ground- religious truths. But history shall consti- 

workl tute the groundwork or body of the in- 

struction, and only so much of the other two shall 
be admitted as is necessary in order to present, in 
proper form, the principal generalizations that the 
history suggests. This plan, if generally agreed upon, 
would eliminate much of the moralizing of the Sun- 
day-school, which accomplishes little more than the 
development of a positive dislike for such instruction. 
Thus far I have expressed a preference for 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 1 99 

biography without giving reasons. Let me now 
attempt to prove, that biography is an especially 
interestino- form of subject-matter. The 

° J .Reason for 

little child wants to endow its playthings biographical 
with its own characteristics. He endows treatmenti 
his doll with the ability to feel, to become sick, to 
be comforted, to take medicine, and to be made 
well again. So long as the objects about him lack 
life, they are unrelated to the child; but so soon 
as they are given personality, he is drawn 
toward them, he loves and enjoys them. p e rsonifica- 
This fact is so important in school work ticm ' 
that good primary teachers regularly make use 
of personification in dealing with young children. 
The popularity of certain books is another proof that 
biography is particularly interesting. If boys and 
girls, eight to ten years of age, were asked to tell 
how a man might live, if he were placed on an island 
by himself, — how he would make his clothing, obtain 
his food, etc., — the problem might excite little in- 
terest. But the moment the situation is personified, 
the moment a man by the name of Robinson Crusoe 
is placed in that condition, and opportunity is given 
to follow him from day to day, the narrative is made 
highly entertaining. Boys and girls weep with 
Crusoe when he is seriously ill, and they rejoice 
when he becomes well again. Thus, feeling is pro- 
duced the moment personality is introduced. Omit 
the thread of life due to personality, and we have an 
essay. It may contain an' equal amount of truth, 
and be just as clearly put ; but it has not that element 
which boys and girls most like. 



200 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

Teachers of geography take advantage of this fact 

by using a book called " The Seven Little Sisters." 

Its purpose is the description of the prin- 

HenceGeog- c i pa i climates on the globe, and it is 

raphy even . , , , . . r , i 

is taught by attained by relating some of the experiences 
Personifica- of Httle girlSj who Hve in different parts of 

the world. There are several other books 
that are used in geography in the same manner. 
" Pilgrim's Progress is a story on the same plan. 
If the experiences of a Christian had been described, 
merely to tell the truth, and not to excite interest, 
this tale would have been very different. But by 
means of the personification of the various tempta- 
tions with which Christian meets, we see him vividly, 
and accompany him in his struggles with the most 
intense feeling. Perhaps no book illustrates this 
general thought more forcibly than does "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin." Our nation first truly felt the 
curse of slavery when this story became known. 
"Hiawatha" illustrates the same truth. In some 
schools it is now the custom to study Indian life in 
some detail, without any Indian in particular to talk 
about. But most teachers choose Hiawatha as the 
basis of such work. He represents Indian character- 
istics, and in following him children obtain an 
insight into the race-life that is tinged with emotion, 
learning to love certain attributes, while disliking 
others. This recalls the thought at the beginning 
of the lecture, that all education is aiming to reach 
our emotions. Knowledge is desirable, indeed 
necessary; but knowledge, alone, lacks life. It is 
an interest in knowledge, a love for it, that is the 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 201 

source of energy and action; and these books, that 
arouse the feeling of love, through the attractiveness 
of a personality, are a most valuable means for the 
development of such a character as the school wants. 

School work in history is much influenced by the 
superior value of biography. Children are made 
acquainted with John Smith, Sir Walter 
Raleigh, the Jesuits, Washington, and History. 
Lincoln, often practically living with one 
of such men for weeks at a time, and learning to 
love some of the ideals for which they stood. 

Much the same idea is entering into Nature-study 

in the grades, and into science in the High-school. 

It used to be the plan in this field to cover . , . 
r And in 

briefly most of the forms of life, — at least Nature-study 
the various classes and orders. But there 
is now a strong tendency, especially in the higher 
work, to concentrate largely on only a few types 
of life; for instance, on the Crayfish, as the repre- 
sentative of one large division, and another typical 
fish as representative of another. It is not true 
biography; but it approaches it, inasmuch as there 
is something like a personality present. 

I have merely attempted, by these examples, to 
show that biography is of special interest, and that 
we are building" upon that fact in Day- 

Why does 

school instruction. You might well inquire Biography 
why biography excites so much interest. lnterest? 
I know that I have no full answer to that question, 
but I should like to contribute two thoughts toward 
its solution. The first is the fact that there is such 
a close connection in the series of incidents that 



202 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

make up each story. I am convinced that Sunday- 
school teachers, as a rule, do not realize the great 
importance of establishing such connection among 

the facts that they offer. Those of us who 
it' gives facts have been connected with colleges or uni- 
connectedly. vers ities easily recall how a one-hour course 
in such institutions is usually abhorred, — by students 
at least, — and probably by the professors also. The 
reason is that a one-hour course, measuring one 
recitation period per week, has its periods so far 
apart that one loses its connections. No matter if 
a good lecture is delivered to-day, before another 
week rolls by it will have been so largely forgotten 
that the student will have to start in his subject 
anew. For this reason, it is not customary to have 
many one-hour courses. 

In Day-schools, it is a very common complaint, 
from instructors in music and art, that, because they 

are allowed only two hours per week, they 
tionnfeSd can accomplish but little. The children, 
between being so young, too, nearly forget between 

the periods what they have once learned. 
Judging Sunday-schools from this point of view, what 
conclusion do we reach ? The period of actual in- 
struction, coming once per week, seldom exceeds 
thirty minutes, and the attention of pupils is expected 
to be less fully concentrated than in other branches 
of study. Certainly if ever there is need of the help 
secured by a close connection, between topics from 
Sunday to Sunday, this is the time. Nevertheless, 
the subject-matter is not so related. A few years 
ago the highest unit, as a rule, was the one-day's 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 203 

work; and probably a majority of Sunday-schools 
follow that plan at the present time. Instead of 
receiving some impetus from the preceding lesson, 
the work begins, each Sunday, anew. And, very 
often, even if a teacher ardently desired to obtain 
material help from the past lessons, it would be use- 
less to make the attempt, because the topics them- 
selves are unrelated. Yet it is certainly possible so 
to select and arrange subject-matter as to obtain a 
close sequence of thought from Sunday to Sunday, 
and to sustain a considerable degree of interest. 
That is very commonly done in teaching the story 
of Crusoe to seven-year old pupils in the Public 
schools. Suppose that a child has reached the point 
where Crusoe has managed to cut a suit of clothes 
from the hides of goats. When a new lesson is 
begun, interest is quickly established, for the moment 
the question is put, ' ' Where did we leave Crusoe ? ", 
the answer is readily given. 

In the Sunday-school instruction that I have 
known, the most enjoyable part of the period usually 
came during the last few minutes. Cannot 
many of you teachers recall how you have ^g^ay- 
yearned for just five minutes more ? You school Les- 
had worked your way up to your point, and 
a few minutes more seemed equal in worth to the 
preceding thirty. This difficulty will be partially 
met, if there is such a close connection between 
topics from Sunday to Sunday as good biography 
affords. The thread of thought could be speedily 
regained, and a high degree of momentum might 
be reached long before the close of the recitation 



204 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

period. Not merely this : we can remember a large 
number of facts far more easily if they are woven 
into a narrative. Whatever is isolated is easily for- 
gotten, as, for instance, the brief news items, and 
"nuggets" from the newspapers. But that which 
is to prove deeply interesting, and to be long held 
in memory, must constitute part of an extensive 
chain or series or complex of thought. It is chiefly 
this kind of knowledge that can have much effect 
upon conduct. The work of tying thought together 
is one of the largest duties of a teacher, and is 
beginning to be so recognised throughout the coun- 
try. Indeed, knowledge is nothing more than 
related thought; and unrelated facts, or even small 
groups of unrelated facts, are unworthy of being called 
knowledge. Until the Sunday-school instructor, 
therefore, has made provision for a very close relation 
of topics from week to week, he has neglected one 
of the first essentials of good teaching. 

We have now seen one of the reasons for urging 
the importance of biography. Another reason is the 

fact that biography is remarkably concrete. 
2. Because _ T - - ^ \ ■ ^ ^ 

Biography Concrete subject-matter is the kind that 
is concrete, children especially like; and, what is 
more, it is the kind that they must have if they are 
ever to reach generalization. Yet Sunday-school 
instruction is prevailingly abstract. There is no 
truth better fixed in all science than that of Induc- 
tion. Every principle of the physical world is 
reached and explained through concrete data; there 
is no other way for the mind to obtain them. And 
if we, as teachers, offer such generalizations, without 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 205 

the concrete data, we offer only empty words to the 
learner. It may be that he has already collected 
sufficient data to interpret the words himself, and in 
that case he is profited ; but even then he shows no 
exception to the law. 

Literature accepts the same general truth. Any 
drama of Shakespeare, or any good novel with hun- 
dreds of phases, aims to present very few 
large thoughts, or underlying truths to the acceptsXs 
reader. Most of the space is occupied principle. 
with concrete details, with incidents of one sort or 
another, that are necessary as a groundwork. Prob- 
ably there are one hundred pages of such matter to 
one of abstraction, simply because the human mind 
requires such an abundance of concrete facts, as the 
basis of broad generalization. 

Contrast this with Sunday-school practice. A 
few days ago, in preparation for this lecture, I 
searched about for a sample of the Sunday-school 
Lessons, that are ordinarily presented. I . , 
found a Quarterly in recent use, whose schools 
lessons varied from 9 to 17 verses, averag- lgnor ' 
ing about 12. The average number of moral truths 
suggested, to be drawn from each lesson, was five 
and one-half, and the actual space occupied by them 
was about one-third of that occupied by the verses. 
There is certainly little of the inductive spirit in that 
kind of instruction. I was much impressed with the 
importance of this point during the past Abuse illus- 
week, while listening to a class, composed S^ ^ tch 
largely of experienced Day-school teachers. Girl." 
About thirty of them were discussing the method of 



206 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

presenting Literature to children, and one was outlin- 
ing his treatment of the fairy tale, 4 ' The Little Match 
Girl." It is a story well suited to children seven 
years of age, and the young man in question briefly 
related how the little girl was attempting in vain to 
sell matches on a cold, snowy afternoon in a crowded 
city. Finally, as it grew dark, she started across 
the street just as a carriage came hurrying along, 
and in her haste to escape injury she lost one of her 
slippers. At this point, after having consumed per- 
haps two minutes with the narrative, the young man 
paused, and suggested that if a class of children were 
present, he would next ask them the following ques- 
tions : ' ' What do you think of the people who rode 
in that carriage ? What should they have done ? 
Why didn't they get out and help her ? What do 
you think of such hard-hearted people?" Then, 
after telling of some of her further vain attempts to 
sell matches, he again interrupted the story with the 
question : ' 4 Do you think the people might have 
bought some ? Were they cruel in not buying 
some ? What is your opinion about that ? ' ' The 
young man himself was entirely inexperienced in 
teaching; but among the others present there was 
no tendency whatever to tolerate such instruction. 
The feeling was strong that, if one is presenting a 
story, he should do so with few or no interruptions 
for moralizing, unless the pupils themselves plainly 
express a demand for such conversation. Attention 
to the moral should rather be given at the close of 
the narrative. But more important than that, these 
teachers had also reached the conclusion that if the 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 207 

narrative occupied as much as ten recitation periods, 

one additional period should prove sufficient 

for the moral; or, in other words, the ratio f/JJI!! ? + atio 

' ' ' 01 concrete 

between the time devoted to the concrete to abstract, 
story and that to a moral truth should be 
fully ten to one. Even then, after having laid such 
a good basis for a generalization, moralizing should 
be altogether omitted, unless the teacher is convinced 
that he has the full confidence of the children, and 
that the story is well understood and appreciated by 
them. It was generally agreed that, otherwise, dis- 
cussion of moral truths and attempts to apply them 
to the lives of the children are likely to result in 
more harm than good. 

You recall that, at the beginning of my remarks, 
I proposed to base most of what I said upon two 
truths, namely, that religious instruction is controlled 
by the same psychological principles as any other 
instruction ; and that a deep interest should be the 
highest immediate aim of the teacher of religion. 
If these statements are really true, and if the teachers 
above referred to were sound in their views — as I 
believe they were — we reach some important con- 
clusions. Most of the time given to the H ence R e . 
Bible instruction of children should be con- ligionsln- 
sumed with narratives and not with abstrac- aho^dta 
tions ; very little moralizing at the proper mainly nar- 

• r 1 1 r 1 if rativeand 

time, is far better than frequent moral talks. no t moral- 
Most effective work is accomplished when wn S' 
one prepares the ground well by means of stories, 
and is watchful enough to take advantage of a few 



208 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

fitting opportunities for the consideration of abstract 
religious truths. 

According to what has preceded, Sunday-school 
instruction should consist mainly of history from 
week to week. In following the lives of Moses, 
Joshua, David, etc., very vivid pictures should be 
built up, and children should really feel the incidents 
portrayed in the lives of their heroes. Then they 
are in a position to appreciate references to under- 
lying religious thoughts, and at such times conversa- 
tions, touching deep religious truths and their 
application to their own lives, are fully in 
place. 

While thus advocating Biography, I do not forget 
that it is not the highest form of historical study. 
In following the development of a whole nation, we 
are pursuing broader lines of work than in observing 
the life of an individual. But that is employment 
better suited to adults than to children. 

There is one objection to biographical study that 

should be borne in mind. That is the tendency, 

while dealing with a great hero, to forget 

toBio^fphy. the mass of the P eo P le - The one man is 
separated from society and idolized, while 
proper teaching of history brings pupils into the 
closest touch with great social problems. The 
Hebrew characters are, however, to some extent 
exceptional, for they live for their people. Joseph, 
for example, gives his life for his race, and it is 
possible to bring out that thought frequently. 

These biographies furnish an excellent outline for 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 209 

the other Bible facts that are later to be acquired. 
That is one element of their worth. When 3, Biography- 
children have become men and women, f°™sgood 

. groundwork 

they are greatly in need of a framework on f or other 
which to fit whatever additional facts they facts * 
learn. Biographical study involves a fair classifica- 
tion of knowledge, for the ideas are necessarily 
arranged in great series. A striking difficulty with 
the majority of Sunday-school teachers is the fact 
that their knowledge is in a chaotic state. Having 
studied one lesson at a time, with little reference to 
what preceded or followed, they may have become 
acquainted with many details, but these are not organ- 
ized, and their knowledge lacks unity. If most of 
what we as children learned in the Sunday-school 
had been centred about eight or a dozen biographies, 
we might have had a real system of events in which 
innumerable other fragments of knowledge, that 
have in fact been lost, might have been tied. 

The need in biographical study of delaying to 
teach the moral or religious truth until the narrative 
is reasonably complete has already been re- 4 ^ 
ferred to. But this is by no means one of helpful in 
the minor elements of worth in biography. 
It might further be mentioned that since it is so easy 
and natural to compare great men, a biographical 
arrangement of subject-matter makes special provi- 
sion for reviews. This itself is one of the most valu- 
able tests of the proper arrangement of a curriculum. 

I have only one other suggestion. It is so easy 
to comprehend what is included under a dozen 
biographies, and relatively so easy to amass that 



210 BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

amount of knowledge, that it might be in place, in 
5. Good for tne near f uture > to require all who desire 
Examinations to teach in Sunday-schools to pass an ex- 
fcLdfeaL amination upon that portion of Bible 
ers - subject-matter. As was said at the begin- 

ning, good intentions do not guarantee good re- 
sults in instruction. For that purpose clear know- 
ledge is necessary, and obedience to law. Sunday- 
school instructors are probably even more in need 
of organized knowledge of Bible facts than of 
method. Yet it has been very difficult to map out a 
certain quantity of matter which any teacher should 
possess as a minimum requirement. This, it seems 
to me, might be a practical minimum. And if 
teachers passed through an examination in the prin- 
cipal biographies in the Bible, they would certainly 
be far better fitted to teach religion than they now 
are. 

If I were asked at what age I should recommend 
the exclusive use of biography in the Sunday-school, 
I should say that, having the same problem in the 
Day-school work in regard to the biography there 
taught, our answer is that we should give biography 
Age for until perhaps twelve years of age. Many 

Biography, would prefer to continue it, I think, 
throughout the grades of the Common-school, or at 
least until the last year, when the pupil is thirteen 
years of age. But inasmuch as so many Sunday- 
school teachers have not yet put the different facts 
together that make up the biographies of the Bible, 
they could well afford to continue somewhat longer 
with biography. 



BIOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 211 

I have said enough about the personality of the 
teacher. If the children have great confidence in 
her, then her mere assertion of moral and 
religious truths is likely to have much mus tdeal 
weight. But as an instructor, she is deal- chiefly with 

53 . ' Pacts, 

ing primarily with facts, — the truths con- 
tained in the Bible. She may affirm all that she well 
can. That is one side of her influence. But her 
actual instruction must deal with this subject-matter, 
and the only way by which she can influence, — that 
is, reach the understanding and feeling and life, — in 
the presentation of the subject-matter, is to follow 
the development of the mind. She is there subjected 
entirely to mental laws. I wish that I could know 
whether you feel that my idea in regard to the rela- 
tive time devoted to moralizing in Sunday-schools is 
correct, and whether my experience is exceptional 
or not. But I have attended at least one class in 
Sunday-school, as a child, where nearly every verse 
was supposed to teach an abstract truth, so that 
when each one was read, the teacher asked, "Now 
what do we learn from that ? ' ' Again I repeat that 
the plan of work probably originated in the supposi- 
tion that the Bible conveys mainly abstract religious 
truth, and that each verse is a unit in presenting it. 
My desire is to suggest that each verse is not neces- 
sarily related to any religious truth directly. It may 
be merely one small item in a group of facts which 
together lead to such a truth. 



IX. 

THE USE OF GEOGRAPHY IN RELI- 
GIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

By Professor Charles Foster Kent, of Brown University. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE IX. 

Importance of Biblical Geography. 

Illustrations of its Use in Sunday-school. 

It makes History real and living. 

Geography of Palestine moulded the character and history of its 

people. 
In Geography the Past and Present meet. 
How to make its results of practical value to students. 
Its importance for a General Education. 
Biblical Geography incompletely taught in Sunday-schools. 
Good School-libraries important to reach best results. 
Suggested Books for School-libraries on Palestine, Egypt, Baby- 
lonia, and Asia Minor. 
Wall Maps, Colton's, etc. 

Palestine Exploration Fund, — its Maps and Books. 
The Divisions or Departments of Biblical Geography. 

Descriptive Geography. Palestine, Egypt, Assyria. 
Physical Geography. Palestine. 

The Six Zones or Divisions of Palestine. 
The Rivers of Palestine. 
Egypt and Babylonia. 

Manufacture of Physical or Bas-relief Maps by Pupils. 
Geological Geography. 
Commercial Geography. 
Racial Geography. 
Historical Geography. 
General Suggestions on Study of Biblical Geography. 
Make its scope comprehensive. 
Study the earth in its relation to man upon it. 
Remember that Geography is but a Step to Bible-study. 
Answer to Question : "Does Scientific Study produce Personal Re- 
ligious Interest ? " 

Personal Faith is not unsettled. 
New Interest in Bible is created. 

The Majority, electing College Bible Courses, not those en- 
tering the Ministry. 
Bible Students in the Universities. Number growing rapidly. 
True Scientific Methods the only ones to apply. 
Answer to Question as to Natural Boundary between Samaria and 
Judea. 

It is a case of merging, rather than of true boundary. 



THE USE OF GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS 
INSTRUCTION. 

MODERN investigation is demonstrating more and 
more clearly to how great an extent the faith as well 
as the history of every people is determined by their 
environment. 

Fortunately that chapter of revelation, written so 
many ages ago by the hand of God on the surface 
of the earth, and which we call Biblical 

, . , ,. . , . Importance 

geography, can be read as distinctly to-day f Biblical 
as three thousand years ago. The noble Geography, 
results of the scientists who have laboured, especially 
during the past century, enable us to appreciate its 
significance and meaning as never before in human 
history. No longer do we regard the earth as man's 
foe, jealously withholding from him her treasures and 
secrets, but rather as his true friend and teacher — 
rigorous at times, but always just and thorough, if 
he will but learn. 

In this age, in which almost every department of 
genuine scientific investigation is throwing its floods 
of new light upon the pages of the Bible, geography, 
in the broad sense in which that term is now used, 
brings to the students of God's Word its rich contri- 

215 



216 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

bution ; and we miss much if we do not avail our- 
selves of all that it offers. 

It is sufficient merely to suggest a few of the many 
ways in which the study of Biblical geography can 
be made of the greatest value to the earnest scholar 
and practical teacher. No longer is it possible to 
see with the physical eye the peoples whose life and 
thoughts are recorded in the Bible ; but we may view 
through our own eyes or those of modern travellers 
the scenes of their activity. A personal interest is 
at once aroused, which is shared by the youngest as 
well as the oldest pupil. Thus Biblical geography 
furnishes a natural and concrete introduction to each 
department of Bible-study. 

One of my legal friends, not long ago, was asked, 

not because of his especial acquaintance with the 

Bible, but because of his inventive spirit 

Illustrations an( _j earnes tness, to assume charge of a 

of its use. & 

difficult Bible-class. It was not the tradi- 
tional class of incorrigibles, but rather a representa- 
tive class with which we, as superintendents and 
teachers, have to deal constantly — a class of boys 
from fourteen to sixteen, coming from homes of cul- 
ture, acquainted with the elements of Bible history 
and literature ; boys looking forward to college and 
business life; with ambitions, in touch with the mod- 
ern spirit, but boys, nevertheless, whom none of the 
many teachers who had attempted it had been able 
to hold ; boys, just cutting loose from their moorings 
in the Sunday-school, who present the most difficult 
problem with which we have to deal. My friend 
realized that methods other than the ordinary must 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 217 

be adopted, and proposed that they study ancient 
Jerusalem. They began, of course, with the Jeru- 
salem of to-day. With the aid of maps and guide- 
books they studied the city, until none of them 
would have been lost in its maze of streets and 
alleys. Not satisfied with a mere knowledge of the 
surface, they began to dig beneath the modern town, 
following the results of the Palestine Exploration 
Society, tracing the walls of the ancient city and 
becoming acquainted with its contents and environ- 
ment, until in time they were so enthusiastic over 
the City of Jerusalem, that not only did they meet 
each Sunday afternoon, but in addition they were 
frequently found during the week at the home of 
their teacher. When they had mastered Jerusalem, 
ancient and modern, they themselves suggested that 
they take up the study of some one of the books of 
the Bible which were most closely associated with 
Jerusalem. Naturally they selected the Gospel of 
St. John, and they burrowed through the wealth of 
learning and religious teaching contained in that 
marvellous book, until as the months went by they 
came naturally and almost unconsciously into touch 
with the Mind of the Master. If the enthusiasm of 
the teacher was any guide, nothing could have kept 
the members of the class from their Bible-work; for 
often have I seen him, as he went down to his office 
in the suburban train, talking with a brother lawyer 
in regard to some question raised by the Book of 
John. I have seen him keep a line of clients wait- 
ing, while he presented some of his conclusions in 
regard to the interpretation of a certain passage. 



2iS GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

At present the class are studying Hebrew history. 
They started with Jerusalem, with something con- 
crete; by natural stages they became interested in 
new subjects, until step by step they are covering 
the Old and the New Testament. 

Biblical geography also provides the only effective 

corrective to one of the greatest dangers threatening 

all study of the Bible. Unconsciously and 

Makes His- .... , ., - , . 

toryreal almost inevitably, children, at least, rele- 
and living, gate the events and characters of that 
ancient Oriental world (so different from the one 
with which they are familiar) to a nebulous realm, 
far removed from earth and the realities of life. 
Biblical geography not only assigns them to a 
definite place, but also takes them from the land of 
clouds and makes them real and living. 

It further establishes their reality, by revealing the 
conditions and forces which produced those events 
and shaped those characters. The location of the 
land of Canaan in the centre of a circle of hostile 
nations shows at once why it was absolutely neces- 
sary for the Hebrews, if they were to maintain their 
independence, to unite under a king like Saul, and 
not only to defend themselves, but also to extend 
their conquests until they became masters of Pales- 
tine, from the coast plains on the west to the desert 
on the east. The contrast between the narrow, 
intense, bigoted Jews of New Testament times, and 
the fickle, self-indulgent, generous Samaritans is 
explained when we compare the rocky, unproduc- 
tive, sombre hills of Judea with the open, rolling, 
richly fruitful fields of Samaria. Man in antiquity 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 219 

certainly was influenced far more than to-day by his 
environment ; and yet we must still go to the Scottish 
highlands to understand Scotch character, or to sea- 
girt Holland to appreciate the Dutch. 

The background of the thought and revelation of 
the Bible is the life of the peoples who figured in it, 
and the background of their life and history 
is the land in which they lived. As we are f Palestine 
coming universally to realize that the his- moulded the 
torical is the only true method by which to an a history 
study the Bible, even so, as a logical ofits lnlaW - 
sequence, we must recognise that its his- 
tory can never be thoroughly or half understood 
without an intimate knowledge of its geography. 

Not only upon the history and character of every 
people has geography left its stamp, but also upon 
all human thought and literature. Pre-eminently is 
this true of the Bible, for no people of antiquity lived 
in closer touch with Nature than did the Hebrews. 
The topography and natural characteristics of Pales- 
tine are reflected in almost every psalm, prophecy, 
and parable which they have given us. The cedars 
of Lebanon, Mt. Hermon, the flowing springs, the 
restless sea, the lion of the wilderness, the eagle of 
the mountains, the lily of the valley, the humble 
sparrows of Palestine, are as familiar to us through 
the literature of the Bible, as the scenes which greet 
our eyes each day. Nature was the great storehouse 
from which the Biblical writers drew their varied 
figures and illustrations. Hence the study of that 
Nature is one of the most important and illuminating 
commentaries upon the marvellous literature which 



220 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

they have given us. The study of geography throws 
back the curtain and reveals the theatre and stage- 
setting amidst which the greatest drama of human 
history was enacted. It makes clear the actual rela- 
tions of the different actors to each other. With the 
aid of our enlightened imagination we can make them 
live, and lo ! that ancient life is again a reality. 
The picturesque valley of Michmash ceases to be 
merely a lonely glen, and suddenly becomes the 
scene of that courageous attack of Jonathan upon the 
Philistine garrison which turned the tide of battle 
and gave the Hebrews their independence. The 
Jerusalem of to-day — grim, stony, dirty, and un- 
attractive in itself — has been the theatre of that which 
was basest and crudest and meanest, and at the 
same time of all that was noblest and bravest and 
best in human history. 

On these theatres the past is brought into close 
and vital relations with the present. On the plain 
of Megiddo Thotmes III., Necho, and Napoleon 
_ _ . walk in the same well-beaten paths. After 

In Geography, § _ r 

past and journeying over the hot plains of Samaria, 

present meet, the travdler feels> as he sits by the wdJ of 

Sychar, the same thirst as prompted the Saviour to 
speak to the woman whom He once found there 
drawing water. Visiting in person, or through the 
eyes of geographers viewing those Oriental lands, 
we find the wide chasm which yawns between that 
ancient life and our own suddenly bridged, and we 
ourselves indeed live in the past, and for the first 
time understand its life, think its thoughts, and 
appreciate the rare simplicity, beauty, and power of 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 221 

its literature. Above all God's revelation, recorded 
in the Bible, ceases to be a distant theological ab- 
straction, and becomes a personal, objective reality. 
Realizing the value and importance of the study 
of Biblical geography, the practical question at once 

arises, How can its results be brought to „ , 
' & How make 

the great body of students who command its results 
our earnest attention ? Although it may °J tosi £_ 
seem aside from our purpose, I cannot dents. 
refrain from emphasizing the need of a more thorough 
study of Bible lands in our public and preparatory 
schools. The field of Biblical geography is broad, 
and its bounds are constantly being extended. With 
all the other opportunities and demands upon the 
short Sunday-school hour, it is impossible to go into 
the details of this study. They properly belong to 
the secular schools. The importance of the history 
and literature of which they are the background 
certainly justifies their claim for a place side by side 
with the geography of Greece, Italy, and England. 
Unfortunately that place is not now accorded them. 
Together with the Hebrew and Jewish classics they 
have been almost entirely excluded from 

• • r Important 

our secular schools. It is a significant fact for a general 
that the province of Victoria, Australia, education. 
which a few years ago decreed that the name of 
Christ should be expurgated from all text-books, is 
already seriously agitating the question of introduc- 
ing Bible-study into the Public-schools. 

It is an anomalous state of affairs which exists 
to-day throughout the Christian world: while we 
compel our pupils to study the pagan, French, 



222 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

German, and English classics, we almost completely 
ignore that body of literature and that history which 
have done more to mould our modern life and 
thought than any others. 

The forces which drove the Bible from our Public- 
schools have spent themselves, and in the light of 
modern methods of study the old objections are no 
longer valid. Shall we all who love truth unite, 
irrespective of creed, in restoring the Bible to its true 
place ? Already in most of our leading colleges and 
universities the restoration has been effected, and the 
large number of men electing the Biblical courses 
demonstrates the wisdom of the step. 

When once the restoration is effected in our 
primary secular schools, the Sunday-school teacher 
will have what is now so sadly lacking — a basis of 
knowledge on the part of the pupil, upon which to 
build. One of the greatest defects in our Sunday- 
school system of to-day is that, in our commendable 
eagerness to mould the moral character of our 
scholars, we seek to enforce ethical truths by means 
of facts and illustrations with which they and often 
we ourselves are only imperfectly familiar. The 
spirit of the age calls for more fact, if not less 
preaching, and we will fall far short of our aim if we 
refuse to recognise its demand. 

No one will deny that at present Biblical geography 
is ordinarily taught in our Sunday-schools without 
Biblical Geo- system and in a haphazard, incomplete 
completely manner. The reason is chiefly because 
taught in it has no definite place in the Sunday- 
schools, school curriculum. It only finds a place 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 223 

in the ordinary classroom when an event must be 
localized. No time is given for that broad, compre- 
hensive study which simplifies, co-ordinates, and 
illuminates all details. Until the Public -school re- 
lieves us of the responsibility, each Sunday-school 
teacher, or at least each graded Sunday-school, 
should devote certain time— better months than 
weeks, for the ultimate profit in interest and intelli- 
gence will richly repay — to the systematic study of 
Biblical geography. 

Geography, in the modern scientific sense, is such 
a new study that it is not surprising that thoroughly 
satisfactory text-books are not at hand. When 
we once fully appreciate the need, they will be 
speedily forthcoming. Advanced students &ood gcliool 
are better provided with books to-day libraries im- 
than the primary department. Since we por an ' 
have no one text-book or books which meet that 
need, we are obliged to depend upon reference 
libraries. Our Sunday-schools should, without 
exception, be equipped with complete reference 
libraries, containing all the really valuable books 
bearing upon Bible-study, and many duplicates of 
the most useful. 

It is a most unfortunate anomaly or medievalism 
in our modern Sunday-school system that in this age 
when our homes are filled with more good and in- 
teresting literature than we can possibly find time to 
read, not only our Mission-schools, where conditions 
are different, but also the Sunday-schools in which 
you and I are interested, have libraries filled with 
story-books, not always of the highest character, 



224 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

while in most cases you may search in vain for up- 
to-date reference-books, bearing upon that subject 
which is supposed to be the chief object of Sunday- 
school instruction. 

I think at this point it will be of practical value to 

speak somewhat in detail of those books which 

should find such a place on our shelves and 

Suggested especially in our Sunday-school libraries. 

books for 

schooi-ii- The historical geography by George Adam 
J"?^ 6 !' +■ Smith is in many ways the most important 
contribution ever made to the geographical 
study of Palestine. With the soul of a scholar, and 
with that picturesque style which characterizes all 
that comes from his pen, he leads us through Pales- 
tine, not aimlessly, not merely as travellers; but 
with a broad outlook he gives us definite impressions 
of its different zones, and points out, with his rare 
skill, their distinctive characteristics and the influ- 
ences which they have exerted upon the people who 
have lived among their hills and valleys. Unfor- 
tunately it is a book whose price perhaps precludes 
putting it into the hands of every scholar ; but it cer- 
tainly should find a place in our Sunday-school 
libraries. Another important book has been recently 
issued by Townsend MacCoun, who approaches his 
theme, ' ' The Holy Land in Geography and His- 
tory, " not with the technical knowledge of a Biblical 
specialist, but with the preparation of a practical 
maker of geographies and maps. In the details of 
the maps, in the originality which he has manifested, 
in the practical way he presents the facts, he has 
given, especially in his first volume, which deals with 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 225 

the physical geography, an exceedingly useful hand- 
book for Bible teachers and scholars. 

Some of you are familiar with Hurlburt and Vin- 
cent's "Manual of Bible Geography." While there 
is much that is good in it, I regret to say that it 
does not represent the results of modern investiga- 
tion, which are in themselves helpful and stimulat- 
ing. While it may be useful for primary pupils, the 
advanced students demand something more funda- 
mental and suggestive. 

Thompson's "The Land and the Book" will 
never cease to have a real value. It lacks the 
scientific arrangement of the work of Professor 
Smith; but we are able, looking through the eyes of 
this man, who was a keen observer of life, to travel 
through Palestine, and see its sights and almost feel 
that we are there in person. 

The same is true of Dean Stanley's work, old but 
valuable, " Sinai and Palestine, " for the graphic pen 
of that gifted English scholar has illuminated for all 
time the land of sacred memories. 

As we pass beyond the sphere of Palestine (for 
our subject is broad to-day) to the study of Egypt, 
which is so closely related to Palestine, I 
urge you all to read the opening chapters 
of Professor Erman's " Egyptian Life. " Especially 
in his description of Egypt do we find much that is 
stimulating and exceedingly fascinating. 

The same is true of Douglas's " History of Civili- 
zation " (in the first volume, chapter 2). 

As we pass to Babylonia, we have rich literature, 
coming from the great host of explorers who have 



226 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

delved below the surface and have given us pen- 
pictures of that which the spade has un- 
' covered. We are all interested in the 
volumes published by Rev. John P. Peters, D.D., 
giving us the results of the explorations of the ex- 
pedition sent out by the University of Pennsylvania. 

For the study of Asia Minor, we are much better 
equipped than ever before, as a result of the original 
work of Professor Ramsey. His ' ' Geography of 
(d) Asia Asia Minor " is exceedingly valuable, and 
Minor. for the missionary journeys of St. Paul, we 

all must have at hand his "Travels of Paul. " I 
would also recommend Stanford's " Compendium of 
Geography, ' ' especially in its studies in Greece and 
Italy. 

In Wall Maps, I regret to say that we are not 

well equipped. The maps which are in many ways 

the best yet published are those issued by 

Wall Maps. _ , ~, , , , , , 

Colton. I hey are valuable because they 
can be seen at a distance, because they present the 
broad outlines, the salient points in the landscape, 
and leave out the details; but they are not up-to- 
date. They do not fairly represent the modern con- 
ceptions of Biblical history, and do little towards 
introducing us to the physical geography of Pales- 
tine. Other maps available are open to the same 
general criticism. 

It is with pleasure that I speak of the work of the 
Palestine Palestine Exploration Fund, — familiar, I 
Exploration am sure, to most of us. Its chief geo- 
graphical results are made accessible to all 
in the great map of Palestine, based upon careful sur- 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 227 

veys conducted by the Fund. It will remain for a 
long time the basis of all other maps of Palestine. 
The Wall Map contains too many details 

{&) MapSi 

to be useful except for personal reference ; 
but the large bas-relief map, although expensive, 
is the most profitable help which a Sunday-school or 
Bible Class can possibly acquire. Smaller sizes are 
issued, and may be advantageously put in the hands 
of students, but the large relief map, showing the 
hills and valleys, making Palestine's contour familiar 
through the eye to the youngest student, is invalu- 
able for the classroom. 

Besides these excellent maps, which have added 
so much to our knowledge, we place the books which 
the Fund has also issued. Two or three 
are especially serviceable. I refer to Con- 
der's "Tent Life in Palestine," which we may use 
side by side with Thompson's " The Land and the 
Book ' ' in studying the land as the scientific traveller 
sees it. The recent volume by Dr. Bliss on "Ex- 
cavations at Jerusalem ' ' enables us to reconstruct 
now the southern walls of the city, and to trace with 
comparative definiteness the outlines of the Jerusalem 
of David and Nehemiah. In addition, the Palestine 
Exploration Fund issues a Quarterly Statement, 
which keeps us in touch with the latest results of 
excavation. Many of them are most suggestive and 
stimulating, especially at this time, when the Fund 
is trying to identify the old Philistine town of Gath. 

As we pass from the consideration of helps to that 
of method. I can only hope to offer a few practical 
suggestions. As geography has been reduced to an 



228 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

exact science, its content has been greatly extend- 
t ed. Four or five distinct departments are 

Departments x 

of Biblical now included under it, and each presents 
Geography. its peculiar pro blems and results. The 
first is that of Descriptive Geography, which treats of 
l, Descriptive tne relations of seas and mountains and 
Geography, cities. While in many ways the least inter- 
esting, it is one of the most important departments. 
I recall a description of Palestine which I happened 
to overhear in one of our city Bible-classes, con- 
ducted by a theological student. After much dis- 
cussion, the class concluded that the Holy Land was 
about 400 miles long, and the Sea of Galilee 50 
miles long. From practical experience with college 
classes, I have become convinced that the same 
fallacies are deep-seated. The reason, of course, is 
not difficult to find. The maps of Palestine are 
usually so greatly enlarged that they give a false 
impression of its relative size, which can only be 
corrected by studying. Two wall maps should be 
the possession of every Sunday-school class: the 
one of Palestine, and the other of the lands of the 
Eastern Mediterranean. No event of Biblical his- 
tory should be studied without being localized. By 
the use of the map the teacher imparts facts through 
the medium of the eyes as well as the ears, and at 
the same time commands the attention of the whole 
class. 

Where wall maps cannot be conveniently used, 
ask your pupils, as you begin, for example, the study 
of the Life of Christ, to draw a map of Palestine, not 
presenting minutiae, but indicating the location of 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 229 

the larger cities, the mountains, the rivers, and the 
seas. If they seem incapable themselves of drawing 
a correct map, give them tracing-paper, and direc- 
tions so that from a convenient map they can copy 
the outlines. Then, as the study progresses, ask 
them at each stage to indicate the Journeys of the 
Master, and the places at which He taught and per- 
formed His miracles. I am assured, from practical 
experience, that at the end of this study you will 
find that there is a definiteness, an interest, a back- 
ground of knowledge in the minds of your scholars, 
which will make the acts, and teachings, and per- 
sonality of Jesus a living reality. Map-making, in 
connection with the study of St. Paul's Missionary 
Travels, will prove equally profitable. When the 
landmarks and boundaries are fixed, we should 
always endeavour to illuminate the Descriptive 
Department of Geography by pointing out the signi- 
ficance of location and relative distances. The land 

of Palestine itself is a superb illustration. 

(a) Palestine, 

Do we not see, as students of geography, 
the significance of its boundaries ? Here is a land, 
bounded on the west by the Great Sea and on the 
east by the trackless desert — a narrow isthmus con- 
necting the two great centres of ancient civilization, 
the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the 
valley of the Nile. Nature destined it to be the 
great highway over which nations must pass for 
commerce and conquest. As we study the location 
of the homes of the Hebrews, high up among the 
hills, we can foresee exclusion for a period with 
opportunities to grow and develop apart from the 



230 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

great stream of the world, while the testimony of 
later history is not needed to make it evident that 
Palestine, the key to the East and West, is destined 
to be the pathway of marching armies, the battle- 
field of mighty nations, and that its soil and peoples 
will be the object of fierce contention. 

As we turn to the land of Egypt, " The Land of 
the River, ' ' we find that on both the east and w r est 
it is bounded by the barren desert, which 
effectually guarded it from all danger of 
attack from these quarters. Thus its location at 
once explains how it was possible for the inhabitants 
of the Nile, without interruption or attack, to build 
up that civilization which survived through the ages. 
A study of its location also discloses the Achilles' 
Heel of Egypt, the narrow isthmus connecting 
Africa with Asia, through which came its later con- 
querors and those Semitic invaders who mingled 
their blood and civilization with that of the resident 
peoples, making the population and life of the Nile 
Valley a strange composite. 

Again, as we study the territory of Assyria, 
located as it was on the edge of the broad valley of 
the Tigris and Euphrates, bounded on the 
c ssym. east ^y the mountains which gradually lead 
up to Central Asia, in antiquity the teeming centre 
of human population, we can see in imagination, 
streaming down from those heights, the fierce in- 
vaders, eager to seize the attractive Land of the 
Plain. We can see the Assyrians taking up the 
sword to protect themselves, perforce becoming a 
warlike people. Having acquired the art of war and 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 231 

tasted the fruits of victory, it was but natural that 
they should set out upon that career of conquest 
which made them masters of Southwestern Asia and 
a portion of Africa. 

Even more interesting than descriptive geography 
is that great field which we designate as Physical 
Geography. It possesses a peculiar fas- 
cination for all, because it brings us into Jj. p hy s j cal 

Geography. 

vital touch with Nature herself, because 
each land possesses a marked individuality, and 
because from these physical characteristics came the 
influences which moulded the life of peoples who lived 
among its mountains and valleys. To-day, as never 
before, we recognise that the physical contour of the 
earth is the potter's wheel with which the Infinite 
Potter shapes the different members of His great 
creation. Consequently we study the physical 
geography of Palestine not merely with 

S . & .? . , . . ; r (A) Palestine. 

scientific interest, but because it is the first 
chapter in God's revelation. Although so old, it is 
a chapter which we may easily read to-day, because 
it is written on the rocks and the hills and the 
valleys of Palestine. At first that land seems but a 
confused series of valleys and hills and elevated 
plateaus, but a closer study reveals an order, and 
soon six distinct divisions or zones are dis- it Bs ix 
tinguished. When we understand the zoncs ' 
bounds and characteristics of each of these, our in- 
timate and intelligent acquaintance with Palestine is 
established. The first zone includes the fa) First 
so-called coast plains, along the Eastern Z0Qe - 
Mediterranean. Beginning on the north, there is a 



232 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

plain only five to ten miles in width, shut in by moun- 
tains which rise abruptly on the east, a fertile terri- 
tory, but too small to support more than a limited 
population. This narrow strip of land, opening to 
the sea, both inviting and compelling inhabitants to 
go forth and find their food and their fortunes on the 
sea, was the cradle of those ancient mariners, the 
Phoenicians. Further south, the plain of Acre 
broadens until it ends abruptly at the base of Mt. 
Carmel, and on the east merges into the plain of 
Esdraelon, which itself constitutes one of the zones 
of Palestine. Around the northwestern base of Mt. 
Carmel runs a very narrow strip of land, connecting 
the coast plains on the north and south. To the 
south of the mountain, which is in reality a bold 
elevated plateau crowned with fertility, lies the ever- 
widening plain of Sharon, in ancient times inter- 
spersed with forest and fruitful fields, to-day a great 
undulatory flower-bed, dotted with the black " tents 
of Kedar " and a few fellahin villages. Below the 
plain of Sharon, the headlands of Judah stand back 
twenty to twenty-five miles from the sea, leaving a 
rolling, healthful, fruitful plain, which at an early 
date became the home of the Philistines. Like all 
the coast plains, it was exposed to attack from every 
side. The necessity of constantly being on the 
defence developed a brave nation of warriors, who 
dwelt in strong fenced cities and struck many a 
deadly blow against the Hebrews living among the 
eastern hills. 

The second zone of Palestine is the district lying 
between the Philistine plain and the central uplands, 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 233 

known as the Shephelah or foot-hills. It is not a 
land of natural defences, but open and roll- q,) Second 
ing. Here raged, during the barbarous zone ' 
period of the Judges, the intermittent warfare between 
the highlanders and lowlanders. 

The third great zone of Palestine, which we desig- 
nate as the central plateau, is separated into three 
distinct divisions, each with characteristics (c ) ^Mrd 
clearly marked. The northern division is zone ' 
Galilee, which is watered by the streams which flow 
from Mt. Hermon. It consists of a series of elevated 
plateaus, with broad deep valleys, capable of sup- 
porting a vast population, and studded with orchards, 
cultivated fields, and thickly clustered cities. Galilee 
gradually merges into the plain of Esdraelon on the 
south, which in turn bounds Samaria on the north. 
Samaria with its fruitful valleys, with its rounded 
hills, some of them rising to the height of two 
thousand feet, but covered to their tops with trees 
and fields and provided with copious springs, is a fair 
land, but open to the outside world, whether friendly 
or hostile. The influence of their physical environ- 
ment upon the character and history of the Israelites 
is clearly marked. They were a pleasure-loving 
people, eager for alliances with their powerful neigh- 
bours, open to foreign influences, and naturally the 
first to receive the blows of Assyria, and the first to 
fall before them. They presented a marked contrast 
to the peoples who inhabited the hills to the south. 
As we pass below Bethel, the landscape becomes 
more grim, the valleys more narrow, the hills more 
rocky, and we realize that we are in the land of Judea, 



234 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

the land of the shepherd rather than the paradise of 
the agriculturist ; Judea, which borders on the desert, 
where life is a desperate struggle; Judea, which pro- 
duced such intense, courageous men as Isaiah and 
the prophet Amos. Naturally the southerners were 
slowest to adopt the agricultural civilization of 
Canaan, while they retained more of the life of the 
desert and clung more tenaciously to the principles 
of independence and the pure faith in Jehovah. 
Secluded and protected by their natural defences of 
headland, sea, and desert, they fell last into the 
hands of foreign conquerors and so survived nearly 
a century and a half after their northern kinsmen had 
ceased to constitute a nation. 

Going still further eastward, we come to the next 
great zone of Palestine. In striking contrast to the 
(d) Fourth three divisions which we have already con- 
zone - sidered is that great chasm in the earth's 

surface which we know as the Valley of the Jordan, 
along which the river which gives it its name flows 
towards the earth's centre, plunging down over 
twelve hundred feet below the level of the ocean, 
until it reaches the sea of death. No region in 
the ancient world possesses greater scientific and 
dramatic interest than this fourth zone of Palestine. 
Its chief historic significance lies in the fact that in 
early times its depths effectually separated the 
Hebrews of the east and west, making it necessary 
for them each to develop their civilization independ- 
ently; while in later generations it protected the 
Jews from the incursions of the hostile people of the 
desert. 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 235 

Climbing up the hills of Moab and Gilead, we 
come to the fifth zone of Palestine, and are in the 
midst of rolling - , grass-covered hills, pierced (e) Fifth 
by deep ravines, through which dashing zon e. 
torrents pour their waters into the Jordan. Here 
the nomad from the desert receives his first lessons 
in agriculture. Here the Hebrews lingered for a 
time, learning valuable lessons and gaining strength 
before they streamed across the Jordan to possess 
the land of Canaan. Here the half-tribe of Manas- 
seh, and the clans of Gad and Reuben found their 
permanent homes. 

The sixth and last zone of Palestine, which, unlike 
the others, cuts across the central plateau from east 
to west, we know as the plain of Esdraelon. ^ g ixtt 
It is a rough, three-cornered triangle, with zone ' 
one angle at the extreme northwestern end of Mt. 
Carmel, another deep down in the hills of Samaria, 
and the third running up past Mt. Tabor and Galilee. 
In appearance it is a great, level, treeless plain, 
watered by the muddy Kishon and its confluents. 
Strategically it is the key to Palestine, for broad 
valleys connect it in every direction with the other 
zones. Across it ran the great highways of com- 
merce. It was also most natural that it should have 
been the great battle-field of Palestine. 

Thus this land of sacred associations no longer 
appears to us to be a mere confusion of hills and 
valleys, but a miniature continent with its distinct 
zones, each with their marked peculiarities and inde- 
pendent moulding influences, each producing different 
types of men and life. 



236 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

As we study the rivers of Palestine, we note the 
same suggestive facts: no rivers inviting commerce 
Its pierce the land; the only stream (the 

rivers. Jordan) which could thus be utilized flows 

to the Dead Sea, whose barren, gloomy shores are 
rarely trodden by the foot of man. Thus the very 
drainage system of Palestine determined the life of 
the Hebrew people, shutting them in by themselves, 
until the great stream of the world's history should 
take them and bear them out to new experiences 
and new life. 

If we find the physical contour of Palestine is sug- 
gestive, equally so is that of the strange "Land of 
the River, ' ' exempt from rain during most 
of the year, and fed instead with moisture 
and fertility by the waters which come down from 
Central Africa. As we study its peculiar contour, 
we see again how it was possible to develop there 
an early civilization, and how the incentives were at 
hand for men to strive and toil for the noble in art 
and civilization. 

Even more suggestive is the physical contour of 
ancient Babylonia. Lying between the two great 
(C) Baby- rivers, it was originally in part submerged 
lonia. and seemingly useless. The long struggle 

required to bring it into a state of cultivation not 
only gave to its conquerors a dwelling-place almost 
unequalled, but also developed a sturdy, energetic, 
remarkable race of men. For building purposes they 
found the wonderful brick-making material, and in 
the beds of the rivers clay on which they could easily 
inscribe their thoughts. From the mountains to the 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 237 

north and east came the invaders, who gave them 
the incentive to build and to use the materials placed 
by Nature in their hands. The western land, 
opened for commerce and for conquest, invited them 
ever to strive for greater attainments. Thus we see, 
in God's great Providence, that the valley of the 
Tigris and Euphrates prepared the way for the first 
lessons in human civilization, which we can trace 
back to-day, in the light of modern excavations, so 
many thousand years. 

If we are awake to the value of the study of 
physical contour, it is possible for us with the aid 
of modern methods to fix its important Manufacture 
results in the minds of our pupils, not only fid use of 

r r J bas-relief 

by the aid of bas-relief maps (which have maps. 
been suggested), but also by their own efforts im- 
pelling them to make bas-relief maps for themselves. 
The process is simple: a shallow case, putty, per- 
haps coloured ; a bas-relief map as a guide to suggest 
the general outlines ; the facility which comes from 
trying and training; and before long you will find 
your students reproducing in miniature the land of 
Palestine, travelling in imagination among its hills 
and valleys, learning themselves the lessons which 
that land teaches. Incidentally you will find that 
some of them will provide your classes with bas- 
relief maps which will be of lasting helpfulness. 

The Geological Formations also present many 
suggestive facts. A broad outlook will 
help us to grasp the details. Underneath q^J^SJ 
Palestine, extending from the Taurus 
Mountains in the north to the Sinaitic peninsula in the 



238 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

south, is found first granite ; then a layer of limestone 
supplemented in the east by loose quartz and sand- 
stone, and by the black volcanic rock. It explains 
at once why we find in the valleys of Palestine so few 
inscriptions. It makes the wonder all the greater 
that such a vast volume of literature has been pre- 
served, representing the thought of that early people. 
We can appreciate the difficulties under which they 
laboured. Unlike the people of the valley of the 
Euphrates, who had easily moulded clay at hand, 
the Hebrews must cut their inscriptions in the soft 
friable limestone or in the hard black basaltic rock, 
both giving very unsatisfactory results. Thus Ave 
can clearly understand why we have so few monu- 
mental remains from the Hebrews, and why they 
learned the lesson of writing so late. We can also 
appreciate why they treasured with such fidelity in 
their memory and by the hands of their scribes their 
sacred writings and thus preserved them intact to the 
present. 

If the time permitted, we would take up the study 
of the great arteries and highways of Palestine. Of 
. „ those months which some of us as teachers 

4. Com- 
mercial are going to devote to the historical study 

eograp y ' of Bible lands, let us devote a portion to 
studying the highways, which represent the com- 
merce and the conquest of ancient times: — those 
highways which ran along the Arabian Desert, down 
to the land of Egypt ; that which ran from Damascus 
on the north; that other highway which ran from 
the coast of Egypt, touching Southern Palestine ; and 
then turn towards Southern Egypt itself. We find 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 239 

the question raised, oftentimes, "Why did Jesus 
leave Nazareth among the hills, and live at Caper- 
naum ? ' ' The answer is to be found in the fact, 
that Capernaum was on the highway which ran 
from Damascus down through Palestine to Egypt. 
He chose Capernaum that He might be in the 
centre of commercial life, that He might be in touch 
with the great stream that went through it. So 
we find the commercial geography of these ancient 
lands throwing floods of light on the thought of 
national development and the development of litera- 
ture. In connection with the Missionary Journeys 
of St. Paul, note how he followed the lines of the 
world's commerce. In the map of his journeys, 
you have the map of commercial enterprise on the 
Eastern Mediterranean. 

With profit we might explore the great field of 
Racial Geography. Propound to yourselves and 
your students, " What was the home of the 
Semitic people?" "From what centre Geography, 
did they spread ? " " What was the 
course of these migrations ? " " What were the 
dominant races ? ' ' Trace, for example, the peoples 
which finally settled in Palestine. First came the 
Phoenicians, who occupied the fertile coast plains; 
then their kinsmen, the Canaanites, who early seized 
the rich inland plains. Following them, long after 
according to their traditions, came the ancestors of 
the Hebrews. Finding Palestine already crowded, 
they passed on to their temporary dwelling-place on 
the borders of Egypt. Trace the migrations of the 
Aramaeans, as they moved westward and southward 



240 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

to conquer the territory immediately north of Pales- 
tine and to build up a powerful kingdom with its 
capital at Damascus. Trace the flood coming from 
the north, which left its deposit on the southern coast 
plains in the person of the Philistines. Note how 
the horde of northern invaders was stayed at last by 
Cyrus the Persian. Note how Eastern civilization 
and influence still moved victoriously westward, 
until in time it was met by the Greek. By Alex- 
ander, the tide, which had so long been setting 
westward, was turned back, and the Greek race and 
civilization swept over Southwestern Asia, leaving 
lasting deposits in, and especially on the outskirts of, 
Palestine. 

Then beginning with the earth itself, having 
become acquainted with its physical contour and its 

peoples, study the varied political boun- 
ty Historical d a ri es , the Historical Geography of Pales- 
Geography, & ^ J 

tine. Perhaps of all the fields which we 

have considered, none is less supplied with useful 
maps than the great field of historical geography; 
for each period calls for a most carefully prepared 
map. As we take up the successive stages of 
Hebrew and Jewish history, it is necessary that we 
ourselves, with our classes, develop the varied 
changes in the commercial and racial geography, 
noting also those forces other than the spirit of man 
which moulded nations and determined their boun- 
daries. Thus, when we come to historical geogra- 
phy, the other departments of geography merge, and 
we have a united whole. 

In the short space which remains may I present a 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 241 

few general suggestions ? Shall we endeavour, in 
the first place, to make our study compre- G ene ral 
hensive ? Comprehensive, in that we do s ^g esti ° n S' 
not dip in here and there at random, but rather try 
to take broad outlooks. It is much easier to under- 
stand the geography of Palestine from 

• i-i ^r tt Make study 

some mountain-top, like JVlt. Hermon or com-prehen- 
Mt. Tabor, than it is from deep down in slve ' 
the valleys. First study the general outlines, then 
their relations to each other, then their significance 
as a composite whole; and then, when you have 
fixed those in your minds and in the minds of your 
students, you are ready to study and understand the 
details. 

In all our investigation, do we also fully realize 
that the object of geography is not merely acquaint- 
ance with this or that portion of the earth's 

1 11 1 • • Study the 

surface, but rather to study the earth in its earth in its 
relation to man; to study descriptive and relatl0Ilt0 
physical geography because of the light 
which they throw upon man's development and 
thought ? The point of view should be that of man, 
and all should therefore lead up to man as the goal 
of the study. Historical, commercial, and racial 
geography are but the records, written in vanishing 
lines upon the face of the earth, of man's activity. 

It may, in conclusion, be well to emphasize the 
true relation of geography to Bible-study. Geography 
It is not an end in itself. We make a mis- but a step 
take if we keep our students always study- Jj. e " 
ing geography merely. It is only a means 
to an end, it is a background, it is the stepping- 



242 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INS'I RUCTION. 

stone to the consideration of the life of a people ; and 
the knowledge of the life of a people who inhabit a 
land is the introduction to the study of their thought 
and their faith ; and the life and faith and thought 
of the Hebrew race present to us the message of 
the Eternal. Therefore the geography of the lands 
which moulded the people of the Bible, which deter- 
mined to a great extent their character, which reveal 
many of the motives and forces which, in the hands 
of the Creator, moulded their life, their history, their 
thought, and their faith, is the most illuminating and 
fascinating commentary upon His Word which God 
has placed in our hands. May He grant that we 
may use it faithfully, intelligently, and successfully! 

' ' I would like to ask about the results that 

this system is going to produce, with reference to 

the length of time required for instruction. 

"Doe^Scien- It is very important to get truth into the 

tific Study minds of students, but Herbert Spencer 

produce Per- . . 

sonaffieii- has admitted that information does not 
gi ° us J nter " produce action. I understand that this 
scientific method does give a good deal 
of interest to the constructive imagination, but 
how much life it also gives I am not quite sure. 
Some sceptical, inquiring minds do not get much 
impression of scientific truth, unless they get it from 
the teacher. I should like to illustrate by a few of 
the sceptical, inquiring minds: there are many 
students in our colleges who are of that class. 
Now, from Professor Kent's observation, I should 
like to know if studying about the Bible has given 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 243 

these minds a personal impression of the power of 
the vital truth of the supernatural life in Christ. 
What interest comes into the student's life from this 
study ? ' ' 

This question is an exceedingly important one. 
I wish we had the students here to answer the ques- 
tion, because they would answer best. I 
can tell you of the character of the students nswer ' 
themselves, which is suggestive. We have in the 
first place many men who were trained in their 
homes to study the Bible. They have also received 
in the Sunday-schools, of course, a certain prepara- 
tion which they find useful in their study. In an 
experience with hundreds of students, I do not recall 
a single instance of a case that has come to my 
attention of a man whose faith has been _ 

Personal 

unsettled. The only approximation to that faith not 
has been in the case of a man, weak in the unsett 
faith, who said, "It is going to shake so many of 
my conclusions, that I will not go on." I am not 
sure but that * ' the latter end of that man was worse 
than the first." But men who have gone on, men 
who have passed through the so-called destructive 
period, and have seen the great constructive trend 
of modern Biblical study, — these men come to me 
and say: " I don't believe this and that as Newbterest 
I did before, but I do find I have a new in Bible 
desire to enter into Sunday-school work. 
I feel that I have a mission to perform. I find new 
interest in teaching. I find that there is a new 
interest on the part of the pupils I find that where 
hitherto I had no success as a teacher, I now have 



2 44 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

success." So much for the men that perhaps need 
it the least. 

I am surprised and gratified to find that in our 
colleges a very large proportion of the men who are 
taking the general courses in Biblical literature are 
not those who are going on to enter the ministry, 
or who are necessarily known as religious ; but they 
are thoughtful men, who want to know the truth, 
men who have rebelled perhaps against the way in 
which Bible truth has been presented to them ; men 
who, if you ask them at the beginning of their 
Biblical study, will say they have no religion at all, 
but men who, unconsciously perhaps to themselves, 
are being brought into touch with the truth, 
The majority, and find themselves on the side of truth, 
lege Biblical an< ^ thus are drawn into the vital, living 
Courses, do work. I recall the words of cheer and en- 

not enter . 

theMinistry. couragement of a recent .President of Brown 
University. Since this was a personal 
statement, I feel a great deal of hesitation in men- 
tioning it, but I think it partly answers the question. 
He said that the Biblical work (including the work 
of the Biblical Research Club, which brings to the 
students a large number of very helpful lectures each 
year) was in his opinion as powerful a religious factor 
in the life of Brown University as a certain other 
prominent institution which would naturally be men- 
tioned in that connection. That is the testimony, 
it seems to me, which comes from all the presidents 
and professors and students of our universities, where 
regular Biblical departments are established. And 
what is the reason ? It is not because the Biblical 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 245 

professors are preachers. It is not because ordinarily 
we try to impress a moral upon our students. It is 
because by the use of modern methods, in all 
earnestness and fidelity, we endeavour to lead them 
to the truth, and believe that when one has once 
found the truth, imperfect though that finding must 
always be, the truth itself will speak, will draw, will 
influence, will inspire, far more than any additional 
words of the teacher. 

Especially to educated university men, Bible- 
study is genuinely interesting. The students tell 
their own story, it seems to me. Students do not 
elect courses unless they consider them of practical 
value. Fortunately, in most of our colleges and 
universities, the Biblical work is entirely elective, 
and usually confined to the junior and senior years. 
In many of our modern universities, while some of 
the other courses have fallen off in numbers, the 

classes in Biblical study have doubled each 

att 111 1 Bible stu- 

year. At Harvard, the. classes number dents in 

between one hundred and a hundred and ^mo-sities. 
fifty. At Yale, they number between a hundred and 
a hundred and seventy-five. At Brown, we have 
over one hundred taking Biblical courses this term, 
of whom fully eighty-five are not contemplating 
entering the Ministry ; which fact seems to me sug- 
gestive. They do not elect them because they are 
easy courses, for one of the greatest obstacles which 
we have to deal with in our Bible-study, which is 
not confined to the university or the Bible-class, is 
the idea that the Bible can be studied somehow with- 
out any effort, without any time, without any know- 



246 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

ledge. To dispel that illusion, we are obliged to 
make those courses among the most difficult in the 
college curriculum. Yet the men continue to elect 
them. And why ? We believe, because they help 
them. It seems to me that such courses alone will 
save our thoughtful, educated young men of to-day 
from the threshold of scepticism. In the study of 
history, we are accustomed to apply certain methods. 
They are the only methods that we ourselves 
would trust, to get at the facts. In literature, 
they are obliged to study the question of intrinsic 
value. They appreciate the necessity of studying 
questions of detail, which, though not the most im- 
portant, throw light upon questions which are im- 
portant. They acquire scientific habits of study. 
Is it in keeping with human nature and the 
tific Methods mm d of to-day to confine those methods 

the only ones entirely to so-called secular history and 
to apply. . 

literature, and say, when it comes to 
Biblical teaching, "We will not apply those 
methods ; we will trust them in this, but we will not 
trust them in that field ' ' ? All the truth has not 
yet been found, nor is it all encased in creeds and 
dogmatic theologies. We cannot, and would not if 
we could, exclude scientific methods from the Biblical 
field. We need in all our Sunday-school classes 
to-day teachers to take the young man by the hand 
and say, ' ' We will apply those methods with the 
same earnestness, zeal, and consecration to the 
study of that ancient life and literature, ' ' instead of 
saying, "We will have nothing to do with them." 
The latter mistake has been made for the last gen- 



GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 247 

eration or two, but it is being corrected to-day by 
earnest scholars and teachers, in the spirit of hu- 
mility, in the spirit of carefulness, of self-sacrificing 
effort, and always with enthusiasm. We believe in 
truth, we believe in the Bible because it is God's 
Word, we believe in a God back of the Bible, and 
therefore we are not afraid of the application of true 
methods which we trust in other lines of investiga- 
tion. We are going forward shoulder to shoulder, 
trying to find the truth, assured that not one particle 
of truth will be lost, that the old truth will only 
reappear in different clothing, adapted to the life of 
to-day ; that all the change will only result in adapt- 
ing it to the new methods of thought and ideas. 
Fifteen or twenty years hence, perhaps sooner, we 
are all going to say, ' ' That is just what I always 
believed, It is only expressed in a different form." 
Then we shall all realize that faithful men, whose 
opportunities have enabled them to be leaders in 
this movement for truth, have been doing, some- 
times amidst opposition, an important work; and we 
shall see that, after all, this present din and smoke 
and dust conceals no deadlier foe than the opponent 
of progress ; that all we are trying to do is to build 
a new and larger house for truth. The question is 
very suggestive. Are there other questions ? I do 
feel most strongly the vastness of the subject. We 
have only dipped into it here and there. I was not 
sure, at each step, that I was meeting the needs of 
this audience; but when you ask questions, I feel 
that we are getting at the heart of the matter. 



248 GEOGRAPHY IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

1 ' Is there a natural boundary between 

Question. . , ,, 

Samaria and Judea r 
No, it is a case of merging. Samaria merges 
into Judea. As you go southward, you gradually 
miss the springs and the verdure-covered 
hills. The valleys become narrower. The 
real boundary is the valley of Michmash, which runs 
up from the Jordan. When you pass that deep 
canon, you come to Judea proper. The fact that 
there was no natural boundary explains how con- 
stant was the warfare between the North and the 
South during much of their history. There was no 
such natural division between Samaria and Judea 
as there was, for example, between Galilee and 
Samaria. 



X. 

THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE AS 
LITERATURE. 

By Professor Richard G. Moulton, M.A., of Chicago Uni- 
versity. 



SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE X. 

The Literary Study of the Bible, What is it ? 

The Fundamental Principle that there is intimate Connection 

between Matter and Form in Literature. 
Principle illustrated by Solomon's Song. 
Two Views of its Interpretation. 
Illustrated by application made of Bible Verses. 
Also by what is the True Literary Form of Psalm VIII. 
Three Main Forms of Bible-study, Devotional, Higher Criticism, 
and Literary. 
Differentiation of each form; 
The three forms illustrated. 

Devotional. Possible errors shown by study of Book of Job. 
Also by error in Quotation from Shakespeare. 
Critical. Illustrated by Book of Micah. 
Literary. Shown in the same Book. 
Our Right to the Literary Study of the Bible. 

In the " Age of Commentary " the proper Form became ob- 
scured. 
The Three Steps towards Recovery of Form. 
How to engage in Study of the Bible as Literature. 
Suitable Printing required. 

Illustration of present imperfect Printing. 
Study of Bible by Books, rather than by Verses. 
Illustration from Deuteronomy. 
The Oratory of Deuteronomy. 
Analysis of the Book of Deuteronomy. 
Principle enunciated. 
Use of Bible as a Library. 

Contents of the Bible Library. 
Literary Study of the Bible. The Three Stages. 
Stage of Stories. 

Illustrated by Genesis. 
Stage of Masterpieces. 

Illustrated by Deborah's Song. 
Stage of Complete Literary Groups. 

Illustrated by Bible History in the Old Testament. 
Analysis of the Pentateuch. 
Illustrated by Bible Philosophy. 
Analysis of the Books of Wisdom. 
Conclusion. 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

I DEEPLY appreciate the opportunity of speaking 
to those who are gathered in connection with these 
lectures ; the more so, because I am aware that the 
studies I am here to represent have only an indirect 
connection with that which is the immediate subject 
of these lectures. I am to speak of the Bible as 
Literature. Now it is true that Sunday-schools do 
not expect to teach the Bible as literature. All I 
claim is that the literary study of the Bible has a 
collateral interest for those who are concerned with 
Sunday-school training ; that it is a subject which 
they cannot afford to neglect. 

To reach the connection between the study I am 
representing and the immediate purpose of these 
lectures, we have not far to seek. There is the 
great fact that the Christian revelation has been 
conveyed in the form of literature. That being so, 
who can deny that literary study is an adjunct of 
Christian education — of the education that is dis- 
tinctively Christian ? But then there is a great area 
of education — of education that we want — which 
cannot be called distinctively Christian. Here a 
second consideration arises; the general literary 

251 



252 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

culture of this time suffers far more by the neglect 
of the literary study of the Bible than does even the 
education that is distinctively Christian. Those two 
links are sufficient to connect the studies that I am 
discussing with the main purpose of these lectures. 

The first thing I want to make clear is this : that 

we understand the term * ' literary study of the 

Bible " in a clear and definite sense. The 

What is the , . , . . . rr 

"Literary phrase is used in many different meanings, 

study of the anc J no one can fi nc [ an y f au Jt with that. 
Bihle" 7 J 

For if the Bible be literature, then in a 

certain sense every kind of Biblical study may be 

called literary study. But I say that I want to 

advocate a distinct and specific literary study of the 

Bible, and it is the study of its literary form. 

Literary form is the essence of the study to which I 

am inviting you this afternoon. 

When we talk of other literatures, what do we 

understand ? We know that Greek literature is 

made up of the tragedies of yEschylus, the dramas of 

Euripides, the epic poems of Homer, the history of 

Herodotus, the philosophic dialogues of Plato, and 

a great many other literary types. When we talk 

of German literature, we understand, again, dramas 

and epics and essays and philosophical treatises, and 

many other literary types. If we talk of French 

literature, we mean all these varieties of literary 

form. If, then, the Bible is justly called literature, 

we ought to be prepared to find that the Bible is 

made up of epics, and lyrics, and dramas, and essays, 

and philosophic treatises, and epistles, and a great 

many other of these literary forms. Now the specific 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 253 

literary study of the Bible, to which I direct your 
attention to-day, is the study of these great literary 
forms in connection with Scripture, — epic, lyric, 
dramatic, philosophic, and the like: — the study of 
these forms and of their numerous subdivisions, and 
of the literary mechanism by which these literary 
forms realize themselves. And the foundation prin- 
ciple of this particular literary study of the Bible is 
this : that a clear grasp of the outward literary form 
is essential to the understanding of the matter and 
the spirit. 

May I assume that fundamental principle ? I fear 
not. My experience is that very few people have 
recognised this intimate connection in Tllefullda . 
literature between matter and form. They mental prin- 
know perfectly well — for I am speaking of Clp e ' 
educated people — that a man cannot be sure that he 
understands an English sentence unless he is able to 
parse it: but it does not occur to them to go on from 
grammar to more purely literary form, and say, 
1 ' You cannot be sure that you have grasped litera- 
ture unless you have clearly understood the outward 
literary technical form. ' ' And therefore I should 
like to dwell upon this foundation principle for a 
short time : that, whether you are taking broad views 
of whole pieces of literature, or whether you are 
studying minute sections, little texts or verses, in 
both cases alike, the clear grasp of the outward tech- 
nical form is essential to the matter and the spirit. 

I will illustrate. In the first place, I will suppose 
that you are taking broad views of whole books of 
literature at once. Now there is in the Holy Scrip- 



254 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

tures a certain book called "Solomon's Song," 
Principle or "The Song of Songs," — a book very 
b^Sol^ mysterious to the ordinary reader. It 
mon'sSong." so happens that literary experts are di- 
vided into two opposite schools with regard to the 
exact literary form of that book. One school says 
that Solomon's Song is a drama. The other school 
says Solomon's Song is not a drama, but is a series 
of lyric idylls. Now, mark, that is only a distinction 
of literary technique — between drama and lyric idylls. 
I am not going to discuss which of these views is 
correct. My point is, what a difference it makes to 
the book which of these two views you accept. 
Those who think that Solomon's Song is a 
drama are practically agreed as to the plot 
of that drama. They say it is this : that Solomon and 
a certain humble shepherd lover are contending for 
the love of the fair Shulamite, the heroine of this 
poem. Solomon and the humble shepherd lover 
contend for her love, and in the latter part of the 
poem— in what our modern phrase would call the 
Fifth Act — Solomon gives way, and the humble 
shepherd and the Shulamite are united in wedlock. 

Now, let us look at the other side. Those who 
say that the work is a series of lyric idylls have 

clearly a very different instrument of inter- 
Second view. . . . 

pretation to bring to bear upon it. In a 

drama you understand that the incidents must appear 

in their proper order, in the order of time. We 

would distinguish a drama, for example, from a novel. 

If you were reading a novel you might, in Chapter 

XX, find some great crisis, and the heroine is deliv- 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 255 

ered by the hero, supposed at the moment to be on 
the other side of the world. That is Chapter XX. 
Now in Chapter XXI the story goes back in time, to 
explain how this hero, supposed to be in Australia, 
came in reality to be in New York. It is quite pos- 
sible for a novel to go back, but you can see that it 
is impossible for a drama, which presents scenes, to 
go back in time. It appears then that the incidents 
in a drama must appear in the order of time, but in 
a series of lyric idylls the story may refer to events 
apart from the order of time. Thus I am saying 
that those who take the view that Solomon's Song 
is a series of lyric idylls have a very different instru- 
ment of interpretation to bring to bear upon that 
poem, with this result: that, according to this view 
of the book, Solomon is himself the humble shepherd 
lover. The story now becomes this: that King 
Solomon, visiting his vineyards upon Mount Lebanon, 
came by surprise upon the fair Shulamite, who fled 
from him. Then he wooed her in the disguise of a 
humble Shepherd, and won her love. Then he 
came in all his state, to claim her as his queen, and 
they are actually being united in the royal palace 
when the poem opens. 

Now, remember, I am not discussing which of the 
two views is correct: but I have brought out, have 
I not ? what an enormous difference it makes to the 
poem which of those technical views you take up. 
The whole story — not some trifling matter of inter- 
pretation, but the whole story — comes out quite 
differently, according as you assume that the poem 
is a drama or assume that it is a series of lyric idylls. 



256 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

This is our principle : a clear grasp of the outward 
technical form is essential to the matter and the 
spirit of the whole poem. 

I will next suppose it is a question of what we call 
a verse, in the Bible. You have selected a verse 
for your meditation. I will suppose that the verse 
is this : ' ' Out of the mouth of babes and 
Illustrated sucklings hast Thou ordained strength, 
tionof wses. because of Thine adversaries." You want 
to interpret that verse. Turn to your 
commentators. Every commentator has a different 
interpretation. One tells you that it refers to a 
historic incident: but those who take that view do 
not seem to agree what the historic incident is. 
Another commentator will tell you that it is a 
metaphor. Another will say it is a prophecy: we 
know it is used as prophecy, but he thinks prophecy 
is the original meaning. Now my point is that all 
these commentators are neglecting our fundamental 
principle of looking to the exact technical literary 
form. The Eighth Psalm, in which that verse 
occurs, is, I would suggest, erroneously printed in 
our ordinary Bibles. Observe, I am not discussing 
any difference of translation: take any translation 
you please. But I say the passage is presented in 
wrong literary form. In most Bibles the Eighth 
Psalm appears as a series of equal paragraphs, laid 
out in parallel lines from beginning to end. Now 
the true literary form of the Eighth Psalm is un- 
doubtedly what we call an " envelope figure. " The 
meaning of the very technical term ' ' envelope 
figure " is, a little poem in which the first line and 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 257 

the last line are identical, and all that comes be- 
tween is, as it were, " enveloped " between Tie ^ 
that common opening and close: that is, form of 
all that comes between is to be read in the 
light of the common opening and close. As the 
psalm is printed in the ordinary Bibles, a series of 
equal parallels, the opening apostrophe is made to 
read thus: 

" O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the 
earth ! who hast set Thy glory above the heavens." 

Accordingly the second verse, which presumably 
opens the general thought of the psalm, becomes 
what I have quoted : ' ' Out of the mouth of babes 
and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength, because 
of Thine adversaries. ' ' But now if you present that 
poem in its true literary form, as an envelope, then 
the opening apostrophe becomes no more than this : 
" O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in 
all the earth! " We know that no more than this 
is the opening apostrophe, because these words 
recur at the close, and the meaning of an envelope 
figure is that the opening and the close are identical. 
If then the opening be, as I say, "O Lord, our 
Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth ! 
then what follows, what presumably opens the 
thought of the psalm, is this: "Who hast set Thy 
glory above the heavens, out of the mouth of babes 
and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength ! ' ' That 
the Architect of the mighty heavens should have 
selected man, a mere babe and suckling in compari- 
son, to be His representative, — that is the thought 



258 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

of the psalm. And now the whole poem flashes into 
organic unity. ''When I consider the heavens, the 
work of Thy hands, the moon and the stars, which 
Thou hast ordained, what is man, that Thou art 
mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou 
visitest him ? Thou hast made him but little lower 
than the angels," and so on. The whole psalm 
becomes a clear unit when once you have repre- 
sented it in its true literary form. You have no 
need to seek for historical references, you have no 
need to seek for deep metaphors. The meaning of 
the whole is as clear as can be, if only you read it 
in the true technical form of an envelope figure. 

This is an illustration of what I am calling the 
fundamental principle of that literary study of the 
Bible to which I am inviting you: that the clear 
grasp of the technical literary form is essential to 
grasping the matter and the spirit. Whether you 
are dealing with great books of literature, or whether 
you are dealing with little verses, a knowledge of the 
literary form is essential to a grasp of the matter and 
the spirit. 

Now in this specific sense the literary study of the 
Bible stands as one of the three main forms of Bible- 
„, . study. By the other two I mean, in the 

Three mam J J 

forms of first place, the Devotional study of Scrip- 
e-s u y. ture . .^ ^ e second place, that which has 
come to be known amongst us of late years as the 
Higher Criticism. I am not discussing which of 
the three is the more important. We would all 
agree that the devotional use of Scripture must have 
the first place. But I am distinguishing, and plead- 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 259 

ing for, the distinction of literary study in the sense 
that I have described, from the devotional use of 
Scripture, on the one side, and the Higher Criticism, 
on the other side. 

The devotional use of Scripture — well, we all 
understand what that is. You read portions of 
Scripture with your soul in a devotional 
spirit, seeking to bring your soul into tune tiidTt'udy. 
with what you read, as God's own message 
to you. That is the devotional use of Scripture. 
The Higher Criticism I understand as a purely his- 
torical analysis of Scripture. Those who belong to 
that school of thinking might not agree 
with me: I am speaking from the outside. Q^f^ 1 
But as I survey Bible-study as a whole, it 
appears to me that what we have come to call the 
Higher Criticism is a strictly historical analysis of 
Scripture — one that sets before itself historical 
problems, and solves them by historical methods. 
The Higher Criticism deals with questions of this 
kind. The books of the Bible, — are they by the 
authors whose names have been traditionally attached 
to them ? Do they belong to the ages to which Ave 
have been accustomed to ascribe them ? Nay, are 
they books at all, or are they compilations from 
various sources, which need splitting up into frag- 
ments, the different fragments having very different 
degrees of authority, validity, and authenticity ? 
Now those, you see, are purely historical questions, 
and those who deal with them deal with them, quite 
rightly, by historical methods. We concede that 
these matters are inevitable. Historical questions 



260 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

must be faced and met with historical ma- 
chinery. 

But what I am anxious to bring out is, that the 

literary study of the Bible, in the sense I have 

described, is something entirely distinct, 

(o) Literary some thing that it would be desirable to 

study. ° 

differentiate both from the devotional use 
of Scripture, on the one side, and from historical 
analysis of Scripture, on the other side. I want to 
point out that both of these, the devotional use and 
the Higher Criticism, stand in need of the literary 
study of the Bible. Both may go wrong — I mean, 
may go wrong in their own department of devotional 
exercise or historical analysis — if they have over- 
looked that which I am claiming, in the literary 
study of the Bible. 

And this is so important that I propose to illus- 
trate it. First, I will take the devotional use of 
The three Scripture. I want to show how this, in its 
kinds of sphere of devotional exercise, may go 

study illus- F . r r 

trated. (a) wrong by ignoring the literary form of 
Devotional. Scripture. I will suppose a plain, straight- 
forward Christian, one who makes no pretensions to 
scholarship, but who of course has his rights to the 
devotional use of Scripture, like the wisest — I will 
suppose that he sits down to read a chapter of the 
Bible. He is reading in a devotional spirit, that is 
to say, he is seeking to bring his soul into tune with 
what he reads, as God's own message to him. And 
in doing this he feels himself very safe. Now I 
want to suggest to you that our plain Christian is not 
as safe as he thinks. For suppose that the chapter 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 261 

he has sat down to read is a chapter from the Book 

of Job, and he has omitted to observe that it is a 

continuation of the preceding chapter, which opened 

with the words, "Then answered Eliphaz the 

Temanite. " So that he is reading - the words of 

Eliphaz the Temanite. Now in the last chapter of 

Job, as you all know, God is represented 

■ 4-t, 4- 4.1, 1 r • " j r t t, BookofJob. 

as saying that the three friends of Job, 
Eliphaz and the other two, have not said of Him the 
thing that is right. So that our plain, straightfor- 
ward Christian, in his devotional use of Scripture, has 
been trying to bring home to himself, as God's mes- 
sage, something spoken by a speaker whom God 
Himself repudiates. Clearly there is something 
wrong somewhere. How has he gone wrong — this 
plain, straightforward Christian, in his devotional use 
of Scripture ? I say, by overlooking a point of liter- 
ary form : by overlooking the dramatic character of 
the Book of Job. 

There is, as everybody understands when his 
attention is called to it, a great difference between 
dramatic and other literature, in this way: if you are 
reading a work of philosophy — say a work of Herbert 
Spencer or John Stuart Mill — then any sentence that 
you come upon represents the mind of the author. 
But if you read a sentence in a drama, does that 
sentence necessarily represent the mind of the 
author ? 

" ' Conscience is but a word that cowards use, 
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe,' 

as Shakespeare says." Shakespeare never said it. 
That is a common mistake. You will find that 



262 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

couplet in the plays of Shakespeare, but Shakespeare 
does not say it: Shakespeare makes some- 
body else say it. And does it make no 
difference when you find that the somebody else who 
is made to say those words is the greatest villain that 
history or fiction has ever portrayed ? It is obvious, 
when attention is called to it, that in dealing with 
drama you may not assume that the words you find 
represent the mind of the author. You must see 
into whose mouth the words are put : and if they are 
put into the mouth of some one evil and tyrannous, 
opposed to the general character of the author, they 
are more likely to represent the opposite of what he 
thinks than his own thoughts. Thus our plain, 
straightforward Christian has, in his devotional exer- 
cises, gone wrong, it seems to me, through ignoring 
this point of literary form. He has read words in 
the Bible as though they belonged to philosophy or 
essay, and overlooked the fact that they belonged to 
drama, and are to be interpreted from the dramatic 
standpoint. So that we see the devotional use of 
Scripture cannot dispense with the literary study of 
the Bible. 

But now I go to the other side — the Higher Criti- 
cism: that is, the historical analysis. And I will 

not, this time, take a plain, straightforward 
(Id) Critical. _, \ . , _ .„ , r b , 

Christian, but I will take one of the great- 
est of the historians — one of those to whom the 
Higher Criticism owes most. And I am bold enough 
to say to you that Wellhausen goes wrong in his 
own department of history through ignoring a point 
of literary form. The passage I have in my mind 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 263 

belongs to the latter part of what is our Book of 
Micah: but without your referring to your Bibles, I 
can give you the general drift of it. If you read the 
last two chapters, as they appear in our modern 
Bibles, you find that in the midst of your reading 
there comes a sudden and startling change. For 
some time you have been reading of nothing but 
terror, woe, and distress. All of a sudden, in the very 
next verse, you come to buoyancy, and hope, and 
confidence. Now of course, startling changes need 
explanation. My suggestion is that the Higher Criti- 
cism — the historical analysis — looks only to history 
for explanation, and finding this startling change 
from distress to hope, the critics are driven by their 
methods to say, ' ' Why, this hopeful passage must 
have come in by mistake. It is an interpolation — 
and, moreover, an interpolation of a different age, 
because the age of the prophet Micah would not 
warrant this buoyancy of spirit, this hopefulness." 
And therefore Wellhausen, followed by the greater 
part of the historical critics, holds that that part of 
Micah is the interpolation of a later age. And I 
quote Wellhausen in particular, because he puts it 
so epigrammatically : ' ' Between verses six and 
seven there yawns a century. ' ' Now, the literary 
study of the Bible says : " No, between verses six and 

seven there yawns a change of speakers. " 

,™ . ,„. , . , • v (c) Literary. 

This part of Micah is dramatic. You are 

not left to infer this : you are absolutely told that it 

is so. All this part of the Book of Micah opens with 

this title : ' ' The voice of the Lord crieth to the city, 

and the man of wisdom will see His name. ' ' Now, 



264 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

any one who is familiar with prophetic literature will 
recognise at once in those words the title of a 
prophetic drama — one of the many prophetic dramas 
in our Old Testament. He will also recognise that 
the title of this drama warns the reader to expect an 
addition to the usual dramatis personce. In the 
prophetic drama the dramatis persona usually con- 
sist of these — the Prophet, God, and the guilty Nation. 
But in these words, ' ' The voice of the Lord crieth 
to the city, and the man of wisdom will see His 
name," you have promised you an addition to the 
usual dramatis persona, in the Man of Wisdom — the 
faithful remnant, the favoured one in whose behalf 
Divine interposition is to take place. Now, this 
being the title of the drama, all that follows the title- 
verse bears out the description. Following the title- 
verse you have, in the first place, Divine denuncia- 
tion of Israel as a corrupt nation, and a warning of 
impending evil. Then follows the speech of the 
guilty nation — words of woe; how all is over, and 
the chance of salvation gone ; nothing left but cor- 
ruption: " Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confi- 
dence in a guide : keep the doors of thy mouth from 
even the wife of thy bosom." Then the Man of 
Wisdom speaks: "But as for me, I will look unto 
the Lord. Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy: 
when I fall, I shall arise." Between the two verses 
there is not an interval of time, there is nothing more 
than a change of speakers. The thing is perfectly 
obvious to those who, not confining themselves to 
historical methods, will also keep their eyes upon the 
literary form. 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 265 

So the literary study of the Bible, in the sense that 
I have designated — the study of literary form, follows 
upon the principle that form is essential to matter. 
And it is one of the three main divisions of Bible- 
study. I do not claim for it any greater importance 
than for the other two, but I do claim for it atten- 
tion, and my claim goes further: that neither the 
devotional use of the Bible, in its area of devotional 
exercises, nor the historical analysis of the Bible, in 
this department of the Higher Criticism — neither of 
these can afford to do without the literary study of 
the Bible. Without it, each is liable to go wrong, 
even in its own sphere. 

Such, then, is the literary study of the Bible, as I 
understand it. But, at this point, I think I ought to 
meet an objection, I won't say in every 
mind, but an objection that will make itself a literary 
prominent in many minds. You will say, study of the 
' ' Is not such literary study of the Bible a 
new thing ? Is it not against anything that connects 
itself with Scripture, that it should be new?" 
Now, it is perfectly true that the literary study of 
the Bible, as I have defined it, is a new thing: but 
a glance at the history of Scripture is sufficient to 
explain that. 

No one questions that the original authors of the 

Bible, quite apart from inspiration of a m 

' 4 F F In the "Age 

more sacred character, were also men ol f Commen- 
the highest literary power. No one, tar 7>' ,lite - 

o J r rar y f orm 

surely, will question that this age in which became ob- 
we live is an age that can and does appre- scure ' 
ciate literature. But between our modern times 



266 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

and the times of the original writers of Holy Scrip- 
ture there intervenes a long roll of centuries, which, 
I think, are best described by the phrase, " The Age 
of Commentary. ' ' In this intervening period — shall 
I say twenty centuries, talking in round numbers ? — 
in this intervening period, between the time of the 
original writers of Scripture and what we call modern 
times, the age of commentary has obscured literary 
form. It is an age that includes what we call the 
Middle Ages of Europe, and extends to the age of 
rabbinical discussions. It is fair to say that, in this 
long period of time, those who discussed Scripture 
had no conception whatever of the Bible as litera- 
ture. It did not belong to their habits of thought. 
Think of the rabbinical commentaries. Their treat- 
ment of Scripture was to superimpose upon the 
written word interminable verbal comments. The 
slightest clause was sufficient as a foundation for 
long and interminable controversy. When you 
come to the Middle Ages of Europe, you find that 
when they refer to Scripture they do not refer to it 
in a literary sense. You do not find the doctors of 
the Middle Ages discussing St. Paul and Isaiah, or 
arguing about the Epistle to the Galatians. They 
simply think of individual clauses, verses, sentences. 
Indeed, the whole habit of their minds was to look 
upon Scripture as a series of propositions. When 
Martin Luther, representing the very heart of the 
Middle Ages, enters upon his work in the Church, 
what does he do ? Does he write a theological 
work ? Does he write a book at all ? He did this 
afterwards : but what he does while he is still under 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 267 

the influence of the Middle Ages is to nail on the 
door of a church ninety-five propositions — separate 
sentences or texts, numbered I, 2, 3, 4, up to 95 ; 
and he is prepared to discuss with the whole 
world on any one of those ninety-five propositions. 
Luther's adversary puts one hundred and three 
propositions on the door of another church, and he 
is ready to fight these before the whole world. 
Their w r ay of looking at Scripture was wholly 
propositional. So, putting together the Middle Ages 
of Europe and the ages of the rabbis, you see they 
are entitled to the name of the age of commentary. 
There was not the slightest conception of the Bible 
as literature: but they looked upon the Bible as 
materials for commentary, or, in other words, texts 
for comment. 

All this was, no doubt, a state of things altogether 
favourable to the preservation of the Sacred Word, 
this minute attention to clauses and verses. But 
literary form, literary distinctions between dramas 
and essays and poems and the like — all these lie 
buried beneath the monotonous surface of texts, 
which appear in these verses divided off and num- 
bered 1, 2, 3, 4, just like Luther's ninety-five pro- 
positions. It takes a long time to recover from a 
burial of twenty centuries. 

The first step in recovering this submerged literary 
form was taken by Bishop Lowth some century and 
more after our King James translation. Firstst 
The proper distinction between verse and towards 
prose had been unrecognised until he redis- 
covered it. And the second step was taken within 



268 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

my own memory, and probably in that of many \\ ho 
Second are here, in the Revised Lectionary of the 

ste P- Church of England ; for the chief difference 

of the new lectionary was that it had shaken itself 
free of chapters. And the third step was taken in 
the Revised Version of the Bible, which has gone 
Third f ar to free itself from divisions. These are 

ste P' the slow steps, extending over centuries, 

that have been taken in recovering the literary form 
submerged under that age of commentary. But the 
greater part still remains to be done, and we must 
recover the full form, — the dramatic form, the form 
of essay, the form of philosophical treatise, the form 
of song, — we must restore every possibility of literary 
form that the commentaries of centuries have taken 
from us, before we can expect to arrive at the proper 
interpretation, before we can apply the outward 
literary form to the interpretation of the matter and 
the spirit of Scripture. 

Now I turn more particularly to practice. As a 
•r . practical matter, how are we to set about 

now to en- r 

gage in lit- the literary study of the Bible in the strict 
of BTbie] 1 7 sense in which I define it ? I note three 
points. 
In the first place, we must make use of all the 
devices of modern printing to bring out the true 
l.Use literary form. Shall I shock you if I say, 

suitable ' , « / 

printing. what I am accustomed to say — that the 
Bible is the worst-printed book in the world ? Not, 
of course, as regards paper, or typography, or bind- 
ing. If you think that literature consists in typo- 
graphy and printing and binding, then when you 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 269 

have bought a Bible you have a right to be satisfied. 
But in everything else, the Bible is the worst-printed 
book in the world. The most trifling poem sent to 
a local newspaper is printed with more attention to 
literary form than the great literature of the Holy 
Scriptures. 

Imagine this. Imagine a few plays of Shakespeare, 
a few poems of Wordsworth, a few essays of Emer- 
son, one of Motley's histories — imagine all these 
printed in a single volume. Then imagine T n * *> 

tr o Illustration 

that the printers, in order to save space, of present 
blot out the distinction between one 
speech and another in the dramas, knock out the 
names of the speakers, knock out the distinctions 
between one poem and another, and the titles of 
the poems; knock out the distinctions between 
verse and prose, and print these dramas, and poems, 
and essays, and histories, all in solid type like the 
columns of the newspaper, without the newspaper 
titles. Imagine, further, if you can — I am putting 
a great strain upon your imagination — imagine 
further that, in order to have this matter brought 
into this solid form, it occurs to somebody that it 
might be very useful as exercises in parsing for 
children, and therefore the solid matter is broken 
up into nice little verses and sentences, of a length 
suitable for use in parsing, and the whole divided 
into twenty or thirty such exercises. If your im- 
agination can go as far as that, then you have the 
exact literary form in which our Bibles are printed. 
Dramatic form, lyric form, distinction of speakers, 
distinction of titles, and what not, all struck out, the 



270 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

whole thing printed solid ; and yet not solid ; broken 
up into verses and texts, — not, I grant, for purposes 
of parsing, but the injury to literary form is precisely 
the same. 

I am saying, then, that one of the practical steps 
in the proper study of the Bible is to restore the 
literary form, — print the poems as poems, the essays 
as essays, and the letters as letters, etc. That, I 
may say, is a task which I have essayed in the 
editing of the Modern Reader's Bible. But what I 
have endeavoured to do must be done by others. 
It will be done, I hope, before long by authority; 
and the Bibles that are in regular use amongst us 
will come to be printed in the proper literary form. 

Passing over this, which is a matter for the few, I 

come to my second practical suggestion, — one which 

appeals to the many or to all. It is a sim- 

2. Study by ** . \ 

books not pie practical principle, a mere rule of 
verses. thumb, and yet it is one so important that 

I believe on it may be founded the whole system of 
the literary study of the Bible. And it is this: that 
whereas in traditional use the unit has been a verse, 
in the literary study of the Bible the unit must be a 
book. A book at a sitting, that is my rule of 
thumb. I say, in traditional usage the unit has been 
a verse. Is not this a fact ? Nothing more harmful 
ever happened to the Bible than the division I have 
spoken of into verses — into texts for comment. The 
result is that most people think of the Bible as a 
collection of isolated verses, isolated texts. I speak 
with all reverence when I say it is as if the Bible 
were a Divine scrap-book. Now, in place of texts, 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 271 

let us have whole books. I mean by a ' book ' a 
whole poem, a whole song, a whole essay, a whole 
epistle, and the like. Are you using the Bible as 
authority in matters of theology ? Then do not 
search all over the Bible for texts to support the 
particular doctrine, but look at an epistle as a whole 
— at a prophecy, or unit of prophecy, as a whole. 
Are you seeking to enjoy the Bible ? Do not sit 
down and read a chapter, but take some literary 
unit, a poem, as a whole, or a particular division of 
history. Dare I go further ? Are you seeking a 
subject for a sermon ? Would that you might be 
induced not always to preach from texts, but some- 
times to take as your theme a whole book of Scrip- 
ture! Seek to bring into the compass of the ser- 
mon's length the spirit and matter of a complete 
work. And the dullest of your audience will rouse 
up and bless you. 

This, then, is the simple practical principle: a 
whole book at a sitting. I have said that I know 
not anything more important than this in the prac- 
tical work we have to do. May I give an example ? 
Perhaps no book of the Bible can better illustrate 
this point than the Book of Deuteronomy. Just fix 
your attention upon the history of the epoch 
when the Book of Deuteronomy first ap- Illustration 
pears in history. Observe, I don t say, teronomy. 
when it was first written: that is quite 
another question. But when the Book of Deutero- 
nomy first appears in history, it was — I use the word 
advisedly — the most sensational book that had ever 
been thrown into the world. As the result of that 



272 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

book a whole nation rushed into a spiritual revolu- 
tion — a revolution that went to the farthest bound 
of Judea. Of course, spiritual revolutions that are 
rushed are not always the best. But Israel had 
caught the flame, and it never entirely went out. 
Prophets like Jeremiah — their thought and their 
language ring through and through with the influence 
of this newly discovered Deuteronomy. The pious 
Israelite read portions of it every day of his life. 
In the time of our Lord it still appeared to be the 
favourite book of devotion. Yet the modern Chris- 
tian, in his devotional use of Scripture, — what use 
does he make of the Book of Deuteronomy ? If your 
experience is the same as mine, you will be aware 
that he usually has a vague idea that Deuteronomy 
has something to do with law. I have heard it 
called a dull book: this most sensational of books 
is looked upon by the ordinary reader as uninterest- 
ing. Turn now to the Higher Criticism, and you find 
the Book of Deuteronomy a storm-centre of con- 
troversy. But observe this : that if you examine any 
historical analysis of the book, I venture to say you 
will find five-sixths of it occupied with just fifteen 
chapters in Deuteronomy, because these chapters do 
present historical difficulties. For all the rest of the 
Book of Deuteronomy, the Higher Criticism discusses 
it as so much ' hortatory matter. ' Now, in the kind 
of study I am advocating, it is just this ' hortatory 
matter ' that is the main consideration. 

From the literary point of view, the Book of Deu- 
teronomy is the oldest, grandest oratory. Its title 
should be, ''Deuteronomy, or, The Orations and 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 273 

Songs of Moses." Considered simply as oratory, if 
I may speak my own opinion, there is nothing in 
Greek or English to surpass it. This much, how- 
ever, you can learn if your literary sense 
is alert, by simply dipping into Deutero- O ratol 7 of 

x j. x o Deuteronomy. 

nomy. But if, instead of dipping into it, 
you read it through to the end, you learn some- 
thing else. You learn that it is oratory, growing 
gradually into drama ; for it is a series of orations, 
presenting a great situation — one of the most terribly 
pathetic of all situations. In all that vast assembly, 
Moses is the only one who understands what the 
promised land is, and Moses is the only one who 
must never enter it. This pathetic situation breaks 
into the majesty of his periods. "The Lord was 
angry with me for your sakes ' ' : that is the phrase 
under which Moses veils the breakdown of his whole 
lifework. All the way through the majestic periods, 
this pathetic note is forever sounding, and as you 
pass from the beginning of the book to the end, you 
are growing nearer and nearer the climax. 

The first of the orations brings out the deposition 
of Moses from his office of leader. The second is 
the handing over of the Book of the Covenant — 
hitherto spoken by word of mouth, now for the first 
time seen in writing — the handing over of the Book 
of the Covenant to the custody of the Levites and 
Elders. The third of these orations is in Analysis of 
connection with that first of Commination tneBook ' 
Services, the ceremony of the blessing and the 
curse. And you may search literature through and 
through, and you will find no language that comes 



274 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE 

near the scathing denunciation with which that third 
oration reaches its climax. There is the fourth ora- 
tion, entitled the Covenant in the land of Moab. 
From oratory the book springs to song. The im- 
pulse comes to Moses to put his words in the form 
of poetry, and we have his song of Jehovah the 
Rock. And then you have the finale. The whole 
nation knows how Moses is going on that journey 
from which he shall never return, and all are anxious 
to catch the last glimpse of him. And because the 
people are so numerous, the heads of the tribes 
come out from among the people and line the path 
by which their leader will pass. You catch the 
step of Moses, slowly traversing the way between 
those heads of the tribes, and scattering to each 
burning words — words of fire which were the pro- 
phetic war-cries of the tribes, — until he has tra- 
versed the whole line, and turns to lift his hands in 
the final blessing: 

" There is none like unto God, O Jeshuron, 
Who rideth upon the heaven for thy help, 
And in his excellency upon the skies. 
The eternal God is thy dwelling place, 
And underneath are the everlasting arms." 

Then Moses turns and passes on that journey on 
which none may accompany him. And from that 
grand outburst of poetry you drop to simple, bare 
prose, fittest of all tones for the purpose of conveying 
the solitary ascent of the mountain, the long gazing 
over the promised land, the death far from his people, 
the burial in the sepulchre which no man knoweth; 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 273 

1 ' and the days of the weeping and mourning for 
Moses were ended. 

I say, this book, neglected by the ordinary Chris- 
tian, discussed for its historical difficulties by the 
Critical School, is one of the oldest, greatest literary 
treasures — magnificent oratory, growing gradually 
into the greatest of dramatic climaxes. You get 
that by reading a book at a sitting. 

Here, then, we have the main principle that I 
would lay down. If you like, I will put it for you 
in technical language. Not the interpretation of 
exegesis, but the interpretation of perspec- principle 
tive. Exegesis is the Greek for a person- enunciated, 
ally conducted tour — the personally conducted tour 
that takes you into every remote point of the un- 
known land, and flashes up for you every darkest 
corner. Without this on the part of some one or 
other you can have no other kind of sight. But the 
age of commentary has gone on so long that the 
materials collected for illumination have blotted out 
the thing to be illuminated, and we want now to 
supplement the interpretation of exegesis with the 
interpretation of perspective — the book-at-a-sitting 
plan. Take your stand at a sufficient distance to 
be able to survey the whole at one view. Sweep 
through your book the first time: of course it leaves 
you a great deal that you do not understand. Sweep 
through a second time, and difficulties of the first 
reading have vanished in the light of the whole. 
Sweep through it again, and yet again : each time 
you gain a clearer view, and from first to last what 
you gain is a hold on the book as a whole. 



276 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

The third point needs only mention. Apply this 
to the Bible as a whole. The Bible disappears as a 

n book, to reappear as a library. And in 

Bible as a the literary study of Scripture, of course 
1 rary. ^j s ijk rar y mus t be handled in a literary 
sense of division ; — the history by itself, the wisdom 
by itself, the poetry and idylls by themselves, 
prophecy by itself, and so on. Thus the Library of 
the Holy Sciptures would be somewhat as below. 

Here must be distinguished to the eye, Story [narrative appealing 
to the imagination and emotions], History [narrative appealing to 
the sense of record], and the Historic Documents [such as in modern 
books would make up Appendices and Foot-notes]. 

Whereas Historic Criticism deals with the Bible as materials with 
which to investigate past history, the literary study recognises " The 
History of the People of Israel as Presented by Itself." This makes a 
beautiful and philosophical unity, when the different parts are divided 
according to their bearing upon the central idea of a Chosen People 
conscious of a sacred mission. 

Bible History. 

Genesis — The Foundation of the Chosen People. 

The Exodus— [Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers}. The migration to the 
Land of Promise. Constitutional History. 

[Deuteronomy , or the Farewell of Moses : Orations and Songs illus- 
trating a crisis of the history.] 

The Judges — {Judges, Joshua, part of Samuel}. The struggle from 
a Theocracy to a Secular Monarchy. 

The Kings and Prophets— [part of Samuel, Kings']. The Secular 
Monarchy and Theocracy side by side. 

The Chronicles— The Ecclesiastical History of Israel. 

Wisdom, or Bible Philosophy. 

The Proverbs — Miscellaneous Observations of Life, with Adoration 
of Supreme Wisdom. [In short literary forms.] 

Ecclesiasticus — Miscellaneous Observations of Life, with Adoration 
of Supreme Wisdom. [In longer literary forms.] 

Ecclesiastes — Observation turned upon Supreme Wisdom, and 
breaking down in religious despair. 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 277 

Wisdom of Solomon — Observation directed upon Life as enlarged 
by the idea of Immortality, and recovering its tone of Adoration. 

The Book of Job — Various attitudes to questions of Life embodied in 
different speakers of a drama. 

[To which may be added, in the New Testament : Wisdom 
Christianized (Epistles of St. James and First St. Jo An) —Wis- 
dom, applied to the Life of Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew. ~\ 

Poetry. 

The Psalms — The Lamentations. 

Biblical Idylls— [Solomon's Song, Ruth, Esther, Tobit\. 

Prophecy. 

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the (so-called) Minor 
Prophets. 

New Testament. 

St. Luke and St. Paul : The History of the New Testament Church 
as presented by Itself. \The Gospels and Acts, with the Pauline 
Epistles inserted at their proper places : thus a counterpart to 
Old Testament History.] 

The writings of St. jfohn. 

Other Gospels and Epistles. 

I come now to that which is the real purpose of 
our lecture, and for which I have been preparing 
in all I have said — the application of all this to 
Christian education. You will not expect from me 
any detail of the plan. I simply want to lay down 
the general principle thoroughly here as to the way 
in which you will apply this literary study of the 
Bible to education of different grades. 

I recognise three stages: the stage of stories, the 
stage of masterpieces, the stage of complete 
literary groups. First, the stage of stories. Literary 

, , f. . . , , study-Three 

I take the distinction between story and stages. 
history. It is very important to insist up- 
on this, because I believe the distinction is very 



278 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

little understood, or, rather, is misunderstood. Most 
people seem to imagine that the story is something 
l. Stage tnat * s not true — something which is made 
of Stories, u p by somebody, out of his own head, 
whereas history, we know, is all true. Now I want 
to say that the distinction between history and story 
is not that at all. As a matter of fact, the differ- 
ence between story and history is a question of the 
mode in which it is put before us. Narrative that 
addresses itself to our sense of record is history. 
Narrative that presents itself to imagination and 
emotion, to the creative faculties — that is story. 

This distinction between history and story has 
application, of course, to the Sacred Scriptures. But 
there is a difference between story in the Bible and 
story in other literature. In most literatures the two 
things are perfectly separate, and are left to separate 
literary men. A class of poets and fictionists repre- 
sent one, a class of grave historians represent another. 
It is one of the literary peculiarities of Scripture that 
• story and history are combined. The Bible is a rich 
story-book, but the stories gravitate to that history 
of which they form a part. Indeed, in your ordinary 
Bibles there is nothing to distinguish what is story 
and what is history. And that is a pity, because 
you must give a totally different mental attitude to 
the two. Just as, in using a microscope, you alter 
the focus for each new object that you look at, so you 
want to bring a totally different attitude of mind to 
bear upon story from the attitude of mind you have 
had in studying history. 

You sit down to read the Book of Genesis. You 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 279 

will find it for the most part traversing long periods 
of time in a few lines. All of a sudden 
you come to the name Joseph, and the J 11 ^^ 
whole character of what you are reading 
transforms itself. You get more interested. There 
is personality. There are moving spectacles of life 
in the background. There are mysteries of dream- 
land becoming clear as events fulfil them. Sudden 
mutations from a prison to a prime minister's throne; 
strange double situations, where Joseph recognises 
his brothers and is not recognised by them ; divine 
Providence coming as a climax, bringing out how 
the cruel act of the brethren has led simply to pro- 
viding the salvation for Egypt and all the world ; all 
these followed by the peaceful conclusion. You go 
on reading Genesis, and you will find yourself deal- 
ing in a few paragraphs with economic changes that 
must have taken centuries to have made themselves 
felt. There is thus a marked distinction between 
the portion relating to Joseph and what preceded 
and what followed it: this is the distinction between 
story and history. 

The Bible is rich in stories, but the stories have 
merged themselves in the history of which they are 
a part. The story is used as a mode of historic em- 
phasis ; and in any properly printed Bible you ought 
to have something — it might be no more than a title 
— to warn you where you pass from story to history, 
that you may change your mental focus. Story, in 
the sense in which I am speaking of it, is the natural 
food for children. Thus you want, as your first 
stage in the literary study of the Bible, Bible stories, 



280 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

isolated from the history to which they belong, and 
Title-divi- presented by themselves. You want not 
sions, very much teaching with these stories. 

The youthful mind studies life : these stories give you 
palpable life, ready for any degree of teaching and 
criticism you desire. And what you do in this way 
of criticism ought to have reference to this great prin- 
ciple, — that our first duty to a story is to love it. 
But one thing more may be done in this first stage of 
stories. While the stories themselves should always 
be left as they stand, yet in the selection of them a 
great deal may be done. They should be so selected 
as to illustrate the grand divisions of history. And 
so, in the first stage, the young mind will uncon- 
sciously be studying history all the while that it is 
appreciating story; that is, the stories will illuminate 
the great features of the historic periods which at a 
later stage the reader will be called upon to correlate 
for himself. He will find, when he comes to study 
history as such, that he is moving from one to 
another of the incidents with which he has already 
become familiar. 

The second stage I call the stage of masterpieces. 
Story is only one of the literary forms of Scripture. 

„ You have, of course, oratory; you have 

2l sta e e of i • i * a J u-i i. 

Master- lyric, you nave dramatic essays, philosophy, 

pieces. anc j ^ e like. In what we call the second 

stage you want to accustom the youthful mind to take 
an interest in literary forms as such, — always remem- 
bering our foundation principle, that a grasp of the 
literary form is essential for the matter and the spirit. 
Now literary forms are best taught by masterpieces. 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 281 

I use the term • k masterpieces ' ' simply to imply that 
certain things are more suitable than others for 
giving a grasp of the form, which is what we are 
looking for. These masterpieces must be absorbed. 
They must be studied and studied, and assimilated, 
to such an extent that not simply the matter, but the 
form itself, becomes dear to the youthful mind. 

Thus, to take a brief illustration : among the lyrics 
of Scripture there is nothing greater than Deborah's 
Song. But it is one thing to read Deborah's Song 
as it appears in its prose form in the fifth ,,, , 

chapter of the Book of Judges. It is quite by Deborah's 
another thing to see Deborah's Song pre- ong ' 
sented in its true literary form, as an antiphonal 
chorus : — a chorus of women, led by Deborah, and 
a chorus of men, led by Barak — and how they 
answer one another, and then unite. Now these 
choruses of men and women clash with one another, 
then they unite in an apostrophe to Heaven. The 
chorus of men describe the miserable condition of 
Israel, the chorus of women break in with the words 
"I Deborah arose, a mother in Israel." The 
chorus of men appeal to the men that ride upon 
white asses and sit in judgment, the chorus of women 
cry to the assemblies of women in the places of 
drawing water. Then you have the gathering of the 
tribes. You have the chorus representing the tribes 
that came to the battle, and those that refused, and 
those that changed their minds. The men sing, 
1 ' By the waters of Reuben there were great re- 
solves." The women reply sarcastically, "Why 
then staid ye by the sheepfolds, to hear the pipings 



282 THE LITERARY STUDY OE THE BIBLE. 

for the flocks ? ' ' And the men answer, .' ' By the 
watercourses of Reuben there were great searchings 
of heart. ' ' The men describe the kings coming to 
fight: the women chime in, ''The stars in their 
courses fought against Sisera. ' ' The men shout, 
"Curse ye Meroz, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants 
thereof, because they came not to the help of the 
Lord." The men describe the strange ending of 
Sisera, — how Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, 
received him: 

" She put her hand to the nail, 
Her right hand to the workman's hammer ; 
And with the hammer she smote Sisera, 
She smote through his head, 
Yea, she struck and pierced through his temples. 
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay ; 
At her feet he bowed, he fell, 
Where he bowed, there he fell down dead." 

The women, with delicate imagery, picture the 
mother of Sisera looking through the lattice, and 
saying : ' ' Why is his chariot so long in coming ? 
Why tarry the wheels of his chariot ? ' ' They repre- 
sent the mother and her wise ladies questioning 
among themselves, while waiting for the spoil. 
And then all together join in the final cry to 
Heaven: "So perish all Thine enemies; but let 
those that love the Lord rejoice as the sun, when he 
goeth forth in his might." I say that Deborah's 
Song read as prose, in the fifth chapter of Judges, is 
a very different thing from Deborah's Song presented 
in its true literary form, with these clashing choruses 
of men and women. It is such effects as these that 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 283 

we should seek to bring out in this stage of study of 
masterpieces. 

We proceed towards the third stage, the stage of 
the complete literary group. We may deal now with 
Scripture as it stands, but not in historical 
divisions, not in divisions made for theo- the complete 
logical purposes, but in the proper literary Literai 7 

.... . _ Group. 

divisions — the study of history as history, 

of drama as drama, of prophecy as prophecy, of 

philosophy as philosophy. 

Let me take an example. Nothing, perhaps, illus- 
trates our subject — the distinction between literary 
and other studies — better than the study of illustrated 
Bible History. In the first place, the great by Bible 

, . -, , r ^ History in 

historic tract that stretches from Genesis to old Testa- 
the Chronicles, and on to Nehemiah and ment ' 
Ezra — this must be presented properly to the eye. 
We must have a distinction made to the eye between 
the historic narrative, and the appendices of statistical 
reference, and the stories which are used to illustrate 
the history. That is one thing. But there is some- 
thing more than that. In the historic analysis of 
Scripture, these historical parts are used as mate- 
rials from which to work up to the actual history. 
Literary study of the Bible takes quite a different 
view. Here it makes no matter what your historical 
view of the Bible is — whether you look upon its his- 
torical books as representing the actual facts, or 
whether you look upon them as accretions of a later 
age, or whether you cannot make up your mind 
between the one view and the other. The literary 
Study of the historic books takes them as the history 



284 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

of the people of Israel, presented by themselves. 
It is not a question, " How far does this present the 
actual history ? ' ' Be that as it may, in the Bible 
we find the history of Israel as understood by the 
people themselves. 

A grand piece of literature is this first portion of 
Scripture, — a grand piece of historical literature, — 
bringing out the nation's sense of its divine mission. 
First you have Genesis, the formation of the chosen 
people. Then the Exodus (not the Biblical Exodus, 
but Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers) ; this is the journey 
to the Land of Promise, and at the same time the 
period of constitutional development, where all the 
constitutional documentary history is found massed 
Analysis of together. Story is used here, as ever, to 
Pentateuch, illuminate. At the beginning, you have 
the story of the plagues of Egypt, in which you see 
Israel as a horde of slaves under the taskmaster. 
Near the close, you have the grander story of 
Balaam: a man coming to curse Israel, who is over- 
powered by the spectacle of their greatness, and 
turns his curse into a blessing. At that point you 
break off from history to oratory: you have the ora- 
tions and songs of Moses, constituting his farewell 
to Israel. For the next division of the history, we 
have the Books of Joshua and Judges. There you 
will find the struggle between the theocracy, or 
government by an invisible God, and the tendency 
to assimilate Israel to surrounding nations. The 
next grand division is the Kings and the Prophets, 
where the tendency to secular government is repre- 
sented in kingship, and the prophets stand forth to 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 285 

represent the original theocracy; so together they 
are like the government and opposition of modern 
constitutional countries. And then, a little later, 
there comes the time when, on returning from exile, 
they are no longer a nation, but only a Church. 
This gives us the Chronicles, with the Books of 
Ezra and Nehemiah, the ecclesiastical history of 
Israel. We must then study the historical parts 
of Scripture as a literary whole, and from the lite- 
rary point of view. 

I will take just one more illustration : the wisdom 
or philosophy of the Bible. I venture to say that 
no literature of the world has a philoso- 
phical literature which makes so perfect by Bible 
and complete a unity. If you were study- ^osopky- 
ing this from the point of view of historic analysis, 
your attention would be called to such points as the 
dates of the various books, the circumstances of the 
age, how a book was influenced by the secular litera- 
ture and thought of its times, and the like. All that 
is perfectly proper in its own sphere. What I want 
is to show how very different a thing is what I am 
calling the literary unity of Biblical wisdom. Through 
it all runs a distinction between the two meanings 
of the term ' ' wisdom. ' ' You might call it ' ' wisdom 
with a small w, and Wisdom with a capital W. " 
The wisdom with a small w is the wise observation 
of human life and conduct. The Wisdom with the 
capital W — who shall define that ? The sense of 
harmony and unity running through the whole uni- 
verse, and man's inner nature; something like what 
we mean by Providence. 



286 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

Now with this thought before us, observe the 
separate books. First, you have the Proverbs — 
isolated observations of life, in the very shortest of 
literary forms, proverbs and epigrams, with hymns 
of adoration to the great Wisdom, the Wisdom that 
runs through the universe. In Ecclesiasticus, the 
second of these books of wisdom, you have again 
isolated observations of life, but in longer 



the Books of literary forms: the maxim and the essay 
Wisdom. come in. But here, again, you have 
hymns of adoration to the Wisdom that runs 
through the universe as a whole. The third book 
is Ecclesiastes. Here you have this great literary 
interest, that for the first time analytical observation 
is turned upon the universe as a whole, and not 
simply upon life and conduct. The literary observa- 
tion turned upon the universe as a whole breaks 
down in religious despair. You no longer have 
hymns of adoration to Wisdom : but instead you 
find elegies on the theme, "Vanity of vanities, all 
is vanity. ' ' But now comes the corrective, in the 
fourth book, the Wisdom of Solomon, from the 
Apocrypha. Once more observation is turned upon 
the universe as a whole, but it is a universe enlarged 
by the thought of immortality. The opening words 
are, " God made not death, neither hath He pleasure 
when the wicked perish: for righteousness is im- 
mortal." With this enlarged conception of human 
life, observation may rest upon it, and see again 
wisdom ; and the whole resolves into a great scheme 
of Providence. Four separate works represent four 
different philosophical attitudes. Then comes the 



THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 287 

grand climax. The Book of Job takes these four 

different philosophical attitudes, and puts them into 

the mouth of four different speakers, in a drama, and 

draws them into unity in a dramatic plot. Now I 

say, in no other literature of this world will we find 

so perfect a literary unity running through its wisdom 

and philosophy. 

Shall I, in conclusion, be confronted with this 

objection, — that what I have advocated is "reading 

the Bible like any other book ' ' ? My 

-,-. . t ,. Conclusion. 

answer is, " Do you or do you not believe 

that the Christian Revelation is conveyed to us in 
the form of literature ? ' ' Once you grant that, then 
I say you must commence with the literature. You 
must first deal with the books as books : and when 
you have grasped their outward literary form, then 
you go on to their matter and spirit. ' < First that 
which is natural; afterwards that which is spiritual." 
First in time, I mean ; afterwards, in time, that 
which is spiritual. I have never known any excep- 
tion to the experience that attention to the literary 
form brings a harvest of spiritual force. 

And let me end as I began. You who are 
specially concerned with the organization of Sunday- 
school teaching, look for a moment outside your 
immediate sphere. Are you, of all people, content 
with the secularization of literary culture ? For that 
is what it comes to. We are accustomed — I don't 
speak of Sunday-schools now — we are accustomed, 
in the schemes of our high schools and colleges and 
universities, to send our young people, for their 
literary culture, to literatures which spiritually are 



288 THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

at the opposite poles from ourselves — to the great 
literatures of Greece and Rome, which spiritually are 
negative to us ; where the highest passion is sensu- 
ous passion, the highest conception of Providence is 
mocking fate, where philosophies are philosophies in 
which God is a traditional accident: and all the 
while we have in our own very hands, being familiar 
with it from our very childhood, one of the oldest, 
grandest literatures, in which lyrics are not inferior 
to the lyrics of Greece, oratory is equal to anything 
that the world has ever produced, philosophy has an 
application to our actual life ; which gives us dramas 
such as no theatre could ever attempt — dramas in 
which all space is the stage, all time is the period, 
and God Himself is one of the chief actors. Is it 
not reasonable that we should accustom those who 
are seeking higher education to associate literary 
beauty with that which is in harmony with our 
spiritual feeling, and not simply with that which is 
opposed to it ? And you whose immediate concern 
is to deal with the teaching of Sunday-schools, see, 
in carrying out your tasks, that you lay a foundation 
for bringing together, in later life, the study of the 
Classics and the literary study of the Bible. 



TOPICAL INDEX. 



I. History of Religious Education. 

Beginnings in Jewish system, p. 107 ff. 

Origin of Teaching Function of the Church, p. 23 ff. 

Religious Education in the early Church, p. 109. 

" " in the Middle Ages, pp. 26, 28. 

Effect of the Reformation, p. 6 f. 
Origin of Religious Instruction in England, p. 49 ff. 
First Sunday-schools, p. 55 f. 
Work of Dupanloup in France, p. no f. 

II. Present Condition of Religious Education. 

The Public School and Religion, pp. 8 ff., 34. 

Age of Revivals past, p. 71 f. 

Religious Instruction in England, p. 52 ff. 

" " in France, p. 56. 

" " in Germany, p. 57 ff. 

America and Europe compared, p. 62 ff. 
Responsibility of the Sunday-school, p. 15. 
Biblical Study in the Universities, p. 244 f. 
Lack of pedagogical training for the Ministry, p. III. 
Need of the Church for Educators, p. 127. 
Need of better religious Pedagogy, pp. 65 f., 75, 126, 165 f. 
Danger of Secularization in Literary Study, p. 287 f. 

III. Organization of Religious Education. 

Religious Education part of Education as a whole, pp. 3, 6, 27, 
106, 133. 

289 



290 TOPICAL INDEX. 

The Agencies for Religious Education, p. 15. 
The Sunday-school essential to the Church, p. 107. 
Organization of the Sunday-school, pp. 15 ff., 85 f. 
Training of Sunday-school Teachers, p. 40. 
Examinations for Sunday-school Teachers, p. 212. 
Payment for Sunday-school Teachers, p. 17. 
Confirmation Instruction, p. 97 f. 
Systematic Instruction of a Congregation, p. 90 ff. 



IV. Content of Religious Education. 

Definition and Purpose of Religious Education, pp. 4 f., 62, 79 f., 

105 f., 133, 196. 
Division into a) Character material, p. 81 f. 

b) Church material, p. 82 f. 
Courses of Study, pp. 17, 66, 86 ff., 91, 113 ff., 127 ff. 
Necessity of a curriculum for Sunday-schools, p. 112. 
Religious Study of Nature, pp. 121 f, 174 f. 
Sacred Geography, p. 122 f., Lect. IX. 
Religious Study of History, p. 123 ff. 
Christian Ethics, p. 124 f. 



V. Methods of Education in Particular Subjects. 

a) The Catechism, pp. 40, 86 f., 90, 113 f, 149. 

b) The Prayer-book, pp. 92 f., 125 f. 

c) The Church Year, p. 94. 

d) The Bible. 

Value of Bible Study, pp. 41, 118 ff. 

How to teach it, pp. 114 f., 118 ff., 158 f., 178 f., 197 ff. 

Literary Study of Bible, Lect. X. 

Forms of Literature, p. 252 f., 276 f. 
Importance of, pp. 253 ff., 260 ff. 

Differentiated from other main forms: 

a) Devotional Study, p. 260 ff. 

b) Critical Study, p. 262 ff. 

Lack of appreciation for in Past, p. 265 ff. 
Beginnings and growth, p. 267 f. 
A Book as a Unit, p. 270 f. 
Bible a Library, p. 276 f. 



TOPICAL INDEX. 291 

Three Stages of Literary Study : 

a) Story and History, p. 278 f. 

b) Masterpieces, p. 280 ff. 

c) Literary Groups, p. 283 ff. 
Proper Printing of Bible, p. 268 f. 
Reading like any other Book, p. 287. 
Influence of Scientific Study on Piety, p. 242. 
Reliance on Scientific Methods, p. 246 £ 
Danger of Unreality in Teaching, p. 136. 
Supported by Psychology, p. 186 f. 
Geography of the Bible, Lect. IX. 

Its Contributions, p. 215 ff. 

Illustration of Helpfulness of, p. 216 f. 

Antidote to Unreality, pp. 218, 220. 

Influence on Character and History, pp. 219!, 241. 

Important for General Education, p. 221 f. 

As a Sunday-school Course, pp. 222 £, 241 f. 

Authorities on, for Sunday-school Library, p. 224 ff. 

Maps of, pp. 226 f., 228. 

Departments of : 

a) Descriptive, p. 228 ff. 

b) Physical, p. 23 iff. 

c) Geological, p. 237 f. 

d) Commercial, p. 238 f. 

e) Racial, p. 239 f. 
f) Historical, p. 240 f. 

Geographical Zones in Palestine, p. 231 ff. 
Advantage of Map-drawing, p. 229. 
Making Bas-relief Maps, p. 237. 
e) Christ, p. 159. 

VI. The Science of Teaching. 

Instruction based on Laws of Mind, p. 195. 
The three Problems of Instruction, p. 133 f. 
Two Ways of Learning, pp.134 f, 142. 
Dramatic Imagination, p. 134 f. 
The Teacher a Creator, p. 135. 
The Art of Story-telling, pp. 137-145. 
Reality, p. 137 ff. 



292 TOPICAL INDEX. 

Reserve in using imagination, p. 142. 

Clear notion of meaning, pp. 143, 145, 148. 

Difference in titles, p. 144. 

Dangers : too much meaning, p. 144 f. 
" wrong interpretations, p. 145. 

Importance of Biography, pp. 197-213. 

Value of Personification, p. 201 ff. 

Why Biography interests, pp. 203 ff. , 206. 

Danger in it, p. 210. 

Useful for Reviews, p. 211. 

Age for Biographical Teaching, p. 212. 
Knowing the pupil, p. I49f. 
The Common Denominator, p. 150 f. 
Preparation necessary to receive Truth, p. 153 f. 
Lines of Insight needful, p. 155. 
Connection between Lessons, p. 204 ff. 
Necessity for the Concrete, p. 206 ff. 
Memoriter Methods, p. 86 f. 
How much moralizing is needed, p. 207 ff. 
Reliance on internal authority, p. 157. 
Directions for studying any subject-matter, p. 146 f. 
Use of Stereopticon, p. 94. 
Bad effects of " Uniform Lessons," p. 166 f. 

VII. Child Study. 

Its Development, p. 163 

Childhood the Best Period of Life, pp. 164, 188 f. 

Child the Type of the Species, p. 164 f. 

Passes through Stages of Race Life, p. 167 ff. 
Each stage to be lived out, p. 169 f. 
Religious Evolution of the Child, p. 170 f. 

Fetich Worship, p. i7of. 

Nature Worship, pp. 171, 176. 
Adolescence, pp. 66 ff., I79f., 183 f. 

Evils of Revivalism, p. 182 f. 
" " Subjectivity, pp. 68 f., 73 f. 

Salvation best taught here, p. 179 f. 

Important to teach Love, p. 180 f. 



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